【1】写下这些文字的时候，雪花儿正飘落在波士顿街头，气象预报员会说降雪量“创了纪录”。往窗外看了看，我想要不了几个小时，美妙的瘫痪时刻就将来临，就是《暴雪瘫痪宇宙中心波士顿》所描绘的时刻。我们甚至还会迎来《整个新英格兰被雪吞没》，或是《厚雪覆盖整个东北部》的时刻。不过，对我来说，只要我们这个地方不能动就好啦，越厉害越好。

【2】 这种雪，有人叫作暴风雪，有人叫作东北暴。我自己的叫法是轰雪。不瞒您说，我还眼巴巴盼着它们，就像棒球迷盼着四月开赛季一样。不过，通常我都会失望的，因为经常今晚的暴雪预警到了明天只是阵阵小雪。

【3】 哎，见鬼去吧，阵雪。我要的是真正的雪，那种能让联邦大道上的大众汽车变成一座座雪堆的大雪，能让麻省湾区交通局的第三轨（供电轨）像大块生肉一样结冰的大雪。暴风雪要是不能让洛根机场关闭至少六小时，压根儿就称不上轰雪。

【4】 重要的是，轰雪让我们长记性，长好多记性。至少，让这里的这些自以为生存本能了得还沾沾自喜的城里人突然不敢贸然走上大街，因为害怕会被大雪吞没。他们其实被软禁在了自己家中。在新英格兰北部，当地人对于这样的夜晚根本无所谓，但要是波士顿也来一场轰雪，波士顿人就不仅要陷入深达膝盖的积雪，还会陷入迷茫而惊慌失措。

【5】 长什么记性呢？那就是，有一种力量比这座神圣无比的大都会还要强大。约翰·汉考克大厦的玻璃掉落酿成灾祸时，我们长的就是这种记性。我们刚刚觉得自己已经战胜了恶劣天气，就发现我们不过是一只只苍蝇，旁边有人正举着苍蝇拍。轰雪让我们不敢越雷池一步/认识自己的斤两。

【6】 轰雪还让我们慢下脚步，对于今天生活在城里的人来说，这可不是坏事。说实话，我觉得不管下不下雪，洛根机场都应该定期关闭，因为我打心眼里一直怀疑，以每小时600英里的速度旅行也许毫无必要。一会儿我就到街上转转去，我知道会发现什么。人们都会步行，大街上一辆车都不会有，就像是19世纪后湾区漂亮的照片一样，没有汹涌的人群，也没有滚滚的车流，那景象就像是有人特意用气刷喷绘出来的。

【7】 而且，今晚肯定会一片寂静，静得几乎震耳欲聋。我认识一些城里人，到乡下会睡不着，因为没有了噪音。我猜，这么多人不喜欢轰雪，就是这个原因。人行道结冰没关系，连能停车的地方少了我们都能应付，可是，老天爷啊，请把音量调高点儿。只要不是亲耳听到的，城里人一般什么都不信。

【8】 我们还应该知道，这样的夜晚无疑非常美丽，一层干净洁白的纱布把城市的伤口都盖了起来。但最有意思的是，这样的夜晚让人们对待彼此的方式突然也变了，而平时城里人给人的印象都是一副德行，就像1964年基蒂·吉诺维斯被谋杀时站在一旁无动于衷的那些纽约人。

【9】 要想让人们觉得人行道上迎面走来的人或许不是抢劫犯，或者打声招呼未必就是变态，没有比好好来一场轰雪更有效的了。你可能会以为，城里人比其他地方的人更有一种同舟共济的感觉，但不摊上一场近似灾难的大事，很多人会一直各行其是。

【10】 就说这么多吧。今夜外面有场轰雪，我必须出去露个脸。

大赛原文

The Whoomper Factor

By Nathan Cobb

【1】 As this is being written, snow is falling in the streets of Boston in what weather forecasters like to call “record amounts.” I would guess by looking out the window that we are only a few hours from that magic moment of paralysis, as in Storm Paralyzes Hub. Perhaps we are even due for an Entire Region Engulfed or a Northeast Blanketed, but I will happily settle for mere local disablement. And the more the merrier.

【2】 Some people call them blizzards, others nor’easters. My own term is whoompers, and I freely admit looking forward to them as does a baseball fan to April. Usually I am disappointed, however; because tonight’s storm warnings too often turn into tomorrow’s light flurries.

【3】 Well, flurries be damned. I want the real thing, complete with Volkswagens turned into drifts along Commonwealth Avenue and the MBTA’s third rail frozen like a hunk of raw meat. A storm does not even begin to qualify as a whoomper unless Logan Airport is shut down for a minimum of six hours.

【4】 The point is, whoompers teach us a lesson. Or rather several lessons. For one thing, here are all these city folks who pride themselves on their instinct for survival, and suddenly they cannot bear to venture into the streets because they are afraid of being swallowed up. Virtual prisoners in their own houses is what they are. In northern New England, the natives view nights such as this with casual indifference, but let a whoomper hit Boston and the locals are not only knee deep in snow but also in befuddlement and disarray.

【5】 The lesson? That there is something more powerful out there than the sacred metropolis. It is not unlike the message we can read into the debacle of the windows falling out of the John Hancock Tower; just when we think we’ve got the upper hand on the elements, we find out we are flies and someone else is holding the swatter. Whoompers keep us in our place.

【6】 They also slow us down, which is not a bad thing for urbania these days. Frankly, I’m of the opinion Logan should be closed periodically, snow or not, in tribute to the lurking suspicion that it may not be all that necessary for a man to travel at a speed of 600 miles per hour. In a little while I shall go forth into the streets and I know what I will find. People will actually be walking, and the avenues will be bereft of cars. It will be something like those marvelous photographs of Back Bay during the nineteenth century, wherein the lack of clutter and traffic makes it seem as if someone has selectively airbrushed the scene.

【7】 And, of course, there will be the sound of silence tonight. It will be almost deafening. I know city people who have trouble sleeping in the country because of the lack of noise, and I suspect this is what bothers many of them about whoompers. Icy sidewalks and even fewer parking spaces we can handle, but please, God, turn up the volume. City folks tend not to believe in anything they can’t hear with their own ears.

【8】 It should also be noted that nights such as this are obviously quite pretty, hiding the city’s wounds beneath a clean white dressing. But it is their effect on the way people suddenly treat each other that is most fascinating, coming as it does when city dwellers are depicted as people of the same general variety as those New Yorkers who stood by when Kitty Genovese was murdered back in 1964.

【9】 There’s nothing like a good whoomper to get people thinking that everyone walking towards them on the sidewalk might not be a mugger, or that saying hello is not necessarily a sign of perversion. You would think that city people, more than any other, would have a strong sense of being in the same rough seas together, yet it is not until a quasi catastrophe hits that many of them stop being lone sharks.

【10】 But enough of this. There’s a whoomper outside tonight, and it requires my presence.