It’s short and far from sweet. A crisp, cold setting somewhere arctic, two people walking across the side of a mountain. The incline isn’t all that steep but it’s impossible to tell how high up the couple are.
There is a shared feeling between them of peace in simply being together, of purpose in this life they’ve chosen to spend at each others side. The beauty of life lying in the simplistic way they live, relying only on each other and the land around them.
The man is Inuit, dark and handsome with strong features and jet black hair. The woman watches him from behind as he leads. He is strong and capable and so is the obvious choice to forge the trail for them both. She smiles when he half turns to look back, checking that his progress isn’t too fast for her. He’s been matching his pace to hers as much as possible so they are walking together as a team. It’s important to him that they be as close together as can be managed. It’s important to them both as their survival often depends on it.
She’s happy to be there with him, but she’s also terrified to be out on the mountain today. Ever since they’d taken their first step outside that morning there had been a feeling of foreboding in the air. Despite the clear skies and the brightly shining sun overhead the whole world seems dark and ominous. Death hangs in the air, watching. She knows, without knowing how, that it will be up to her to save him (save them both) should the great hand of Fate reach down to try and scoop them into its waiting arms.
Less than a moment has passed, he is smiling at her. A wide, toothy grin filled with the kind of mischief so typically his, when it happens. Their only warning a loud rapport that sounds more like gunshot than ice breaking. She can see the great wall of snow towering over them, seconds before it bears down on them. She may have screamed, but there’s no way to know for sure whether the sound makes it past her lips or only echoes through her head. She runs to him fighting the rush of snow as it tries to push her down.
He’s turned back toward her but doesn’t move right away. The playful mischief has been replaced with the same overwhelming terror she feels inside. It has turned loving, stone gray eyes the color of the deep swirling water at the base of waterfalls.
The snow climbs up her body, entombing her and halting her in her tracks. The knowledge that she can no longer move her lower body barely registers so keen she is to reach him. He is buried waist deep when the snow passes over her head. He is the last thing she sees before the sun disappears under the dark oppressive blanket of snow and ice. Reaching his one free arm toward her, he looks on desperately as she tries to claw her way through this incredible act of nature in vain.
They are buried. Entombed. Mere feet between them and yet they could easily be worlds apart. She is lucky. The snow had somehow formed a tiny dome around the front of her head. There is room for the tears she cries to stream down her face, rather than just form a crust of ice in her eyes.
Is he alive? Has he died? What will she find if she digs her way out? What will she do if she finds him frozen, gone too far away for her to reach until her own time comes? She doesn’t want to survive this if he is gone. It is as that thought courses through her like a convulsion that she hears it. A hoarse whisper of voice speaking words he knows will help her go on. “It’s always darkest before the light.” Words he speaks often. A statement of fact in the Great North, and in life. His message is clear: this might feel impossible but don’t lose hope. We can get through this.
She has to believe that voice is real and not just in her mind, and that belief gives her the jolt of strength she needs to start trying. She’ll dig her way out. She’ll dig them both out if need be. They will see the light again. It’s the only way.
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