Trek
I stepped off the bus into an icy wall of air that took my breath away. 2 AM. Shit. 'Home' was still five miles away over the ice. Usually there was a steady stream drunken snowmobilers from the island bar-hopping and returning from the mainland. Too cold I guessed - well below zero. I hated the noisy snowmobiles anyway.I remembered a few snowmobilers, who from past winters, crossed the five mile ice bridge during heavy snow storms while drunk, only to become disoriented and fatally wander into the unfrozen channels of shipping lanes cleared by the Coast Guard icebreakers. The bodies and sleds are seldom found. The dark currents beneath the ice are strong and 500 feet deep. Little comfort as I stepped from the shore and began my trek to the island, my heavy shoulder bag already cutting into my collarbone. The snow was several inches deep but light.
Though the night was windless and crystal clear, my mood was dark with a suddenly heightened sense of loneliness and aloneness. It was then the ice began to eerily rumble and roar as it does in response to subzero temperatures, expanding and shifting like the earth's mantle, cracking and quaking under foot. Unsettling, though I knew it was several feet thick by now.
During the first mile I consciously kept the faint lights of the island in view, occasionally removing my glove to remove the uncomfortable accumulated ice from my moustache brought by the freezing exhaled vapor beneath my nose. I still fought the overwhelming sense of isolation. The images began as if from an overhead camera high in the sky, seeing myself as a mere speck on the ice, at the same time a vision of the uninhabitable depth and darkness of the freezing black water below me, a 500 foot valley extending to a mountain, the top being the island. The shifting ice continued to thunder through the darkness in a menacing soundtrack for it all.
I stopped for a cigarette and on cue the ice stopped thundering. Silence. No, a thousand silences. It seemed as if the world was holding its breath. The smoke curled straight up. Not a bit of wind. The camera above seemed to zoom further away leaving me lost in the snowscape and unbearable darkness. I shook my head and blew it off to depression, still a familiar problem in recovery, but it persisted. I think I felt a tear freeze to my cheek. I had to move on.
I was about half way when something seemed to flash before my eyes. Lightning? An azure colored patch of light began to move across the sky before me, then a red one and green, violet and orange. Then they seemed to expand into brilliant curtains of light, throbbing, flashing and waving as if driven by winds. Aurora Borealis ! I stood transfixed. I'd not seen them since I was a child in the forties. I began walking toward them, following, centered above the island. The ice was as bright as day, awash in the reflected lights.
I suddenly felt relieved, an overwhelming sense of well-being and flushed with hope. It was inexplicable. The lights continued until I reached the shore of the island, then faded.
I asked folks on the island, that day, if they'd seen the lights. None had. I realised they were for me. Mine alone.
Though the night was windless and crystal clear, my mood was dark with a suddenly heightened sense of loneliness and aloneness. It was then the ice began to eerily rumble and roar as it does in response to subzero temperatures, expanding and shifting like the earth's mantle, cracking and quaking under foot. Unsettling, though I knew it was several feet thick by now.
During the first mile I consciously kept the faint lights of the island in view, occasionally removing my glove to remove the uncomfortable accumulated ice from my moustache brought by the freezing exhaled vapor beneath my nose. I still fought the overwhelming sense of isolation. The images began as if from an overhead camera high in the sky, seeing myself as a mere speck on the ice, at the same time a vision of the uninhabitable depth and darkness of the freezing black water below me, a 500 foot valley extending to a mountain, the top being the island. The shifting ice continued to thunder through the darkness in a menacing soundtrack for it all.
I stopped for a cigarette and on cue the ice stopped thundering. Silence. No, a thousand silences. It seemed as if the world was holding its breath. The smoke curled straight up. Not a bit of wind. The camera above seemed to zoom further away leaving me lost in the snowscape and unbearable darkness. I shook my head and blew it off to depression, still a familiar problem in recovery, but it persisted. I think I felt a tear freeze to my cheek. I had to move on.
I was about half way when something seemed to flash before my eyes. Lightning? An azure colored patch of light began to move across the sky before me, then a red one and green, violet and orange. Then they seemed to expand into brilliant curtains of light, throbbing, flashing and waving as if driven by winds. Aurora Borealis ! I stood transfixed. I'd not seen them since I was a child in the forties. I began walking toward them, following, centered above the island. The ice was as bright as day, awash in the reflected lights.
I suddenly felt relieved, an overwhelming sense of well-being and flushed with hope. It was inexplicable. The lights continued until I reached the shore of the island, then faded.
I asked folks on the island, that day, if they'd seen the lights. None had. I realised they were for me. Mine alone.
posted by Blue at 9:08 AM
2 Comments:
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