Punksatawny…Punxst…Poncas…That Town in Pennsylvania Nobody Can Spell—The 2023 Groundhog Day celebration turned dour as Phil, the world’s most famous weather-predicting groundhog, failed to emerge from his home amid a prolonged emotional stupor.
“The real shadow isn’t seen, only felt,” Phil said, lying in his bed facing away from cameras.
Wearing the same bathrobe he’s had on for a week, Phil eventually crawled to a small window and stared expressionless.
“Winter, winter everywhere nor any sun to see,” he said, his back hair matted and covered in Cheetos dust.
George Durham, Phil’s agent, said it isn’t uncommon for Phil to become a bit melancholy each February, but this year is particularly bad.
“He went through a phase in the 90s where he listened to a lot of Morrissey records, and back in ’06 he briefly changed his name to a blank space because he said he didn’t know who he was anymore, but I’ve never seen him like this,” Durham said. “And people say that I only worry about him because he’s my meal ticket, but that’s not true. I have lots of clients, in fact, I just signed a basset hound that can predict if you’re going to need cataract surgery.”
When spring does arrive – a date which remains uncertain – Durham said Phil would shed some weight, seek a mate, and meet up with his friends at that groundhog-only country club, but until then there would there may be many dark nights of the soul.
“They come to me for answers; those who have yet to see beyond the folly and banality of this day and shed the simplistic notion that the future is knowable,” Phil said. “I have nothing for them. I have nothing for me. The only certainty is uncertainty in this blackened present in which the only illumination is the slowly dying embers of a forgotten past.”