Fields of Frost

There was a loud thud, then a silence which surrendered all of it’s color, it had been 10 days since this horrid snowstorm had trapped me in an abandoned cabin somewhere in the mountains of Alaska, hope was drained from my thoughts and nothingness resumed with the white dress of the earth.

I was a private in the army stationed at Fort Richardson, it was a miserable place imbedded in the frost of winter but worse it was a miserable place embedded in the hate of small men who for once in their life had gotten power.

My soul longed for the mountains, for the beauty which Alaska possessed in it’s prism of wonder, there wasn’t much to do and I often spent my time alone in the heart of Mother Nature, trailing the spine of the earth.

Snow storms were a constant in Alaska and frankly I had gotten used to it, almost adapted to them and was able to still do everything I wanted, but that day it was like nothing I had seen.

I was 85 miles down the St Bernard Mountains where I had camped 2 days already, I had all I needed to make it out on the other side which was another 120 miles away.

As I was hiking it began to snow, I kept going though as it seemed like the dark specks of another day in Alaska, then it got rougher, rougher, it got harder and harder to see, that’s when I saw a cabin, I knocked asking for help but there was no answer, I waited wondering if I should just keep moving, it was however quickly evident that the snow would swallow me if I kept moving, I pushed the door a little to test it’s strength but as mysterious as the location itself, the door opened.

I quickly looked around and imagined my apology but as I walked around there was no one to be seen, nothing to be heard.

I closed the door and set my stuff down on the hardened wood floor, the air was thick and the silence was haunting, I was terrified, I couldn’t quite escape the thoughts that were grabbing hold of me, the wildest circles spun me in their waves of fear, where was I?

Days went by and the snow stayed the same, it was as if I was stuck in an episode of The Twilight Zone, the colors were always the same, the silence was constant and it made me collapse into my own thoughts.

I had vivid dreams of childhood, I saw crystals dancing with me on those days where youth was celebrated by society and by myself, it was slim, those days of angels, those nights of terror, but I was content, my own blood, my own dreams, my own happiness. Youth didn’t exist in me anymore, I was a product of a machine, a hazy mirage made to appear as something when deep down I knew I was nothing.

On the eleventh day I began to worry, I was running out of food altogether and I had realized that the door was frozen and I couldn’t open it anymore, the windows were barricaded with thick pieces of wood that were nailed to the walls, I started to panic.

I kicked the door repeatedly,

Bang

Bang

Bang

but nothing, no budge or anything,

I laid on the floor and thought about the situation, then I remembered that I had a knife in my bag, I took it and began excavating around the door.

I got it all around and then with all my force tackled the door,

It broke, I fell on the snow and realized what I had done, it was pitch black outside and the snow was still thick, I crawled back into the house and laid on the wooden floor again.

As the snow quickly filled into the cabin I felt the stubborn gaze of death looking down on me from the stormy sand castles above, I was trapped, this cabin was my grave.

I laid there and suddenly my eyes began to shed colors, I was hallucinating, I looked out into the distance and I saw myself.

He smiled and then a huge barn owl emerged and ate him, I looked back and he stood behind me, he smiled and ate me too, as I fell down his stomach I felt the universe dissolving from my flesh, I was disappearing into the abyss of time and space.

I fell and fell till there was nothing left of me,

I fell into the darkness and became it,

then the barn owl emerged from a wormhole,

it’s bulging eyes contained the whole universe,

it looked at me and I at it,

“We are one with infinity, you and I” he said.

I closed my eyes and when I opened them I only saw a limitless universe, I only saw infinity.

I heard banging and then suddenly I was back in the cabin, I tried grabbed at my surroundings but my body was frozen, I couldn’t move at all, but then there was a light in the distance.

I heard voices and I began to cry, I was drowsy but finally I saw a face emerge from the storm, it was a familiar face, I closed my eyes and went into a dream.

I saw an old lover, she sat besides me on a picnic blanket, she was a delicate rose, my heart was filled with warmth,

“I love you.” She said.

I looked around and everything was perfect, the sun was dancing with the flowers of spring, summer was peaking it’s head, it was all too perfect.

I opened my eyes again and I awoke in a hospital bed, the tv was on and I was the headline

“Lucky to be alive!” It read.

I don’t know if lucky is the right word,

my friends came in and yelled with joy,

the doctor told me of how lucky I was to have survived and my friends joked about my death, everything felt like it was normal again but I felt different, I wasn’t who I used to be.

How could I just go back to ordinary life now?

I sat in my hospital bed and looked out the window, people moved back and forth, endlessly, it was like another dream, the synchronized steps, the frowning faces.

They walked away and another entered, the eyes were the same,

the words were the same,

I couldn’t see the meaning,

those miserable parents who hate each other,

that kid whose listening,

the lost love,

the lonely car rides,

they all mean the same nothing,

those perfect days,

those parents who love each other,

that kid that grows naturally,

the passionate love,

the eternally gifted sunshine,

they all mean the same nothing.

I wasn’t sad,

I wasn’t lonely,

I was just aware,

I was fine with it,

for life without meaning

is just as the universe is,

words flew by my ears

I watched with stubborn eyes,

if life would’ve ended then and there then what could have possibly come after infinity?