Impossibly Cold

It was february, the trees were tall and crisp, they looked like something out of a fairytale, every snow flake glimmered like the tiniest cut diamonds when the glistened in the sun. The bark was aching from the cold- fifty below zero and it wasn’t letting up, the treees begged for mercy as they lightly swayed with the blistering cold breeze. Some days they wondered how they’d made it so far.

The ground had millions of layers of snow compacted down into a solid cake of 4 feet deep snow, so hard if you walked in shorts you’d leave with thousands of cuts, that would burn for days. If you walked down the small path that had once been gorgeous white stones neatly placed to make a perfect trail, enclosed by the most fragrant red and white roses you’d ever smelt. Now it was just tall lumps of black covered in a mount of snow.

If you were brave enough to endure the weather that could kill you just with a single enable, you’d probably venture far enough through the field to see the full landscape.

The horses stable was closed, the last of the horses had been shipped to a warmer climate to ensure their survival through this freakish hell. Hell? More like if hell froze over. The icy cold air was so intense your skin would blister from the cold, your throat would be dry and your eye lashes would go white instantly.

You may be wondering who I am, well… I am nobody- nobody important atleast. I’m just here to document what not many will survive long enough to document.

The world has changed drastically from what you know it as, you remember sunshine and colloids, springs blooming in the spring and rain falling on your face, easily hiding tears of heartache and jealously hiding many stolen first kisses. Summer was warm and fun, winter was three months long and melted away, fall was the beautiful inbetween to keep the beauty alive.

Not anymore. It’s been three long years since it started to snow… no other season had come.

Janika- the love of my life, we had spent 10 lovely years building our acreage out here. Riding the horses and enjoying the little lake we created in our yard, splashing, swimming and teasing. Somehow the cold took over, she was taken by pneumonia half way through the second year. It broke me. I crawled into a hole in the snow- not knowing if I should try to freeze to death or use the shelter for warmth. She didn’t deserve to die, she was a wonderful women full of adventure and beauty- inside and out. She was smarter then anyone I knew and raised more hell then any trouble maker I’d ever known. After four months of solitude, barely eating or moving, holding her pillow wishing it were her, I finally left the house.

I’d walk to the frozen pond everyday and just stood in our spot, imagining her stunning face smiling back at me. Everyday for a year.

I started imagining something across the lake every time I went there, hoping she’d walk across the pond into my arms. She never did.

In the beginning of the third year I built an ice fishing shake. The pond was connected to a bigger lake not far away so I built it to fish. Who knew? Maybe the fish would still be alive. It took me 7 days to drill through the ice- well, try to dig through the ice. It was so cold and solid there was possibly nothing in it. No point in me further exposing it to more ice.

It was almost always dark- maybe a couple hours everyday where it was lighter out, the northern light shone brightly enough to almost be as bright as the sun.

Sitting in the log cabin we built together, I heard an absurdly loud noise come from the roof. What was that? Wait- was that the sun rising?! What was happening?! Was it christmas??

I walked to the door as the sun rose, shining on my face a tear streamed down my face, could it really be?

A magical chunk of ice and snow had fallen off the roof exposing the shingles to the glorious rays of sun beaming down, it was so hot! Oh my oh my I yelped barely loud enough to have been heard.

“Robiiiin”, she called my name so sweetly, was this a dream?

I turned around to see my sweet janika standing infront of the bright light holding her arms out for me!

I ran to her arms, I held her so tightly as we drifted off into the light, finally together- forever