Vocab Story #5

Cold, rushing wind.

Snow snakes across the ice in zigzagging streaks.

I open my eyes, and the moon is faded among soft silver clouds above me.

My fingers are cold and damp as I tap them on the ice, scattering the air bubbles below the surface. 

The bubbles quiver. They know why I'm here.

It is not because I need to relax.

Calm is a foreign concept to me.

I don't need to relax. I need to sleep, preferably for a very, very long time.

Cold, rushing wind blows again.

My eyes close.

I have always been aware of things to come - not necessarily in the way you might think. I have always been able to feel change, to stop the inevitable from happening. I have always had that power. But this - a cold night, a frozen river - this was not in my prognosis. I did not see this.

It began with his hypocrisy.

My knack for physiognomy let me know he was lying. The memory of his face, the way it looked as he defied one of his own personal dogmas, is scorched into my mind. He taught me not to be critical of others, and then he made me small and worthless. He betrayed himself, then hurt me. It pushed me over the edge.

I recall frantically fleeing into the woods behind our cabin, plunging my fists into my eyes to scrub away the tears. I could feel the strings snapping inside of me as I ran. I lost my grip on the rational world. Did I go crazy? Or had I simply endured too much? Either way, it doesn't matter now. 

Nothing matters but me and the solid winter river.

I savor the feeling of the glassy ice supporting me. Right now it is firm, but soon the sun will rise and the river will thaw, and I will sink into the black water. If I don't drown in my thoughts first, that is.

Up until now, people have considered me a sage. But what am I except a kid with an unfortunate knowledge of the world's workings? My knowledge is my downfall, if nothing else. It makes me weak enough for other things - like emotions - to slip in.

I count the number of fissures in the ice as dawn approaches and makes them grow. It feels as though I am lying on a piece of wood slowly sagging inward.

Sagging, sinking, breaking.

Breaking. Falling. Sinking.

I am conscious of the water wrapping its arms around me. Blue silk shrouds my eyes and blinds me. Frothy bubbles crowd my mouth. I do not scream as they flood my throat. What comes out instead sounds more like a gurgle, and I keep thinking about how inconvenient all of this is. Why won't the water just take me already? It's what I deserve, isn't it? If I couldn't even predict my own death. I wonder what I'm good for.

My chest grows numb, and I feel everything and nothing all at once. 

Nothing but the rush of my  own blood. 

Everything about the frozen water. 

I am hot and cold. I am fire and ice.

I am surrounded by nothingness, and the stars sputter out. Maybe I've just ceased to see them. Maybe I refuse to see them because they aren't saving me like they have in the past. The sky is no longer peppered with light. I breathe in the bubbles and wait to die.

Then I stop breathing deeply and gasp.

And I wake.

And the moon is faded among my soft silver curtains.