The Whole

This was originally published in the Fiction community for Mackenzie Davis' Ekphrastic Challenge using the above photo by Oneg in the Arctic. But then I decided there was more of the story to tell, so I'm moving it to chapters, soon to be followed by chapter 2. If you've already read this, feel free to skip right over to the next chapter "Aegenwulf" (which means "wolf of the chief sea").

The ice on the lake is at least two feet thick. The temperature: twelve below zero. That’s Fahrenheit. Three o’clock in the afternoon. That’s going to be the high for the day. Fairly balmy compared to the past month & a half out here on the bay. The hole in the ice is fresh right over the deepest waters out here. Nothing has even begun crystalizing over the opening. Nor is there any steam rising from the surface.

And no one else is here.

No auger. No shelter. No bench or seat. No heater. No fishing gear. No bait cooler. Neither fisherman nor fisherwoman nor fisherchild.

The only tracks in last night’s snow are mine.

There’s no wind. Not even a breeze. The air is always moving out here, often violently, consistently brisk.

I stare at the hole blankly, puzzling over its existence.

There are tales, rarely spoken & only in hushed tones. Rumors of something in the ice, beneath the waters, hovering in the air. Neither fish nor fowl nor beast. Nothing fabled or shrouded in myth. Just… something.

It always begins like this, with a hole in the ice. And shadows of folk who never return, names & faces unremembered, simply lost beyond time or ice or waters or thinnest of space.

I pull my rig from the pack I’ve slid along behind me. A hole is a hole, story or not. Shouldn’t waste it. Just saves me the work of drilling one. Don’t bother setting up the shelter or the heater. Right now, I don’t even pull out my folding stool. Just attach the weights & lures, wondering what’s down there.

I drop the line into the water, straight down around ten feet. Then it drifts to the west just a bit. The current is still there. At least something is moving. Time still exists.

Which means the sun will set soon. I will want to set up the shelter & get the heater running. Temperature will fall at least twenty degrees tonight, possibly sixty or more if a front moves through, though I see no indication of anything approaching.

And yes, I can see for miles in every direction but south over the ice. It’s only three-quarters of a mile back to the shore & a little further to my cabin nestled among the trees. Another half mile to the makeshift tavern in our little community where my neighbors will soon be gathering. Heck, half of them are already there.

But tonight I want to be alone out here where no one has a right to be.

I drop the line another fifty feet & it settles back into the middle of the hole. Strange. It should continue to drift.

I have plenty of line with which to work. Another fifty, one hundred, two hundred, three….

Straight down.

Nothing.

Is there nothing down there at all?

The sun settles beyond the hills & trees to the southwest as the rod slips through my fingers, fingers which have not released their grip. It falls to the ice & slips into the waters as I watch through misting eyes. I don’t look around to see as the ice swallows up the pack with all my gear, settling back as though nothing had ever been there, last night’s snow no longer disturbed by my trail.

On the shore, in a cabin nestled just in among the trees, a light which had not been on just moments before goes off. The door opens to a grizzled figure heading toward a makeshift tavern with a story to tell.

A story of nothing.