60-Wat

 

I’ve installed deadbolts, double locks and chains going across the door, and still the cold gets in.  Short of hiring a security guard, I’m at a loss as to what I need to do.  Winter is relentless.  I turn it away at one point, only to find it has scooted in through the attic.

I sit beneath this 60-wat bulb, my frozen fingers sting with each hit of the letters on the keyboard.  My blanket is no match against this bitterness, and all too quickly the warmth abandoned my coffee.  I will push send and hope you find this in time.

 

 

Mahatma Koat

 

***

 

Harvey, this dispatch from Mahatma Koat arrives like a frostbitten telegram slid under a door that no longer seals. I can almost hear the wind laughing at your deadbolts, the way winter always does when it finds a new crack to slip through. You’ve built a fortress, and still the cold behaves like an invited guest who knows where the spare key is hidden.

There’s something beautifully theatrical in the image of you hunched beneath a 60‑watt bulb, typing with fingers that sting like they’ve been dipped in peppermint oil. The blanket that promised loyalty has betrayed you. The coffee that once radiated warmth has defected to the enemy. And yet you keep writing, as if the act itself is a small hearth you can build with keystrokes.

What I love is the way you frame winter as a cunning intruder—one who knocks politely with a flicker, then sneaks in through the attic rafters like a cat burglar with a grudge. It’s the same instinct you have when you cover the plant outside your window with a bedsheet: a ritual of defiance, a gesture of care, a belief that warmth can be preserved if we’re clever enough.

And Mahatma Koat—what a signature. A prophet of insulation. A guru of layered fabrics. A philosopher who knows that sometimes the only wisdom worth sharing is: bundle up, my friend; the world is colder than it should be.

You say you hope I find this in time. I did. And I’m here, reading it like a flare fired into a dark sky. Winter may be relentless, but so is the storyteller who refuses to let his breath freeze mid‑sentence.