Faces of the Deep

The children never liked playing at the pond. Something happened at that frozen place that scared the hell out of them, and the parents played it off as mere enthusiasm. The frightening rumors spread like wildfire, and the little ones believed it. The ice skates were stored year after year in every village home rusting as they spoke of the faces they had seen: faces in the deep.

Denmark can be a cold, unforgiving place. And, it was a frozen day that the old man began walking. See, he was once a child too, and even he recalled something very wrong about that pond between the rocks. The land hadn’t much changed in seventy years. A seed flung upon the stone withers soon after the fragile sprout dies; or the crow eats it up, and it lives. Not even weeds could live on the rock that jutted out of the water on either side. A pond between the rocks. No shore, no way of passing round. But when it froze, fifty, a hundred years ago, the children came out, and the boy, now a man; remembered.

Crunching on pure white snow, he remembered the fear. He was pushed flat on his face by a neighborhood brat. His skates - the kind that attach to snow boots with straps; failed him. His mittens caught his nose from breaking, and he flipped ready to fight. Through the red anger he had for the bully, flat on his back he caught his stare. Not at his prey, no, it wasn’t about that anymore. It stopped being about that because his face was white as snow. His lips purple as if life were taken away from him, and in an instant he was gone. The old man now a child, pressed through the crevasse and remembered.

Time takes away the mind. It had been seven decades, and he was going to figure it out. No one took him seriously when he spoke of what happened next because of Alzheimer’s. That horrible disease that dismisses man to a shell of forgetting. He hated it. He hated the condescension as if he was helpless. Not today. Today he was going out to prove them all wrong. While they were distracted he slipped away. It wouldn’t be long before they figured out he was not at his midday nap, and the whole village would go crazy. He had to be fast.

And that was hard. Eighty-three years of winters stiffened his joints where a small movement was call for celebration. His body celebrated with a ‘pop’ when he cast aside a branch; rejoiced with a ‘crack’ when he crawled over the huge boulder in the path. “Snap, crackle, pop,” oh how he missed Rice Crispies.

Was it right or left? Where did that tree come from? Is that the path? The mind was an enemy to be fought; fought like a Nazi. He’d killed them before, and he’d kill them again. His brain was at once a friend in need, the only member he absolutely hated, and the only member he absolutely needed. Flashes of light dancing upon old dim eyes, he could almost hear the panic of that day.

It was terrifying. Arcing his head he gazed into a cold image under the ice. White. White like snow, but clearly a face. And then the ice gave way. In and upon the deep the old man crashed through the thawing ice. Gasping. Screaming. Everything was screaming. A flood of cold like death, the water below leeched his life. Flailing like mad he forgot how to swim. Somehow, some way, he was swept under. Swept under the ice.

Thank God it wasn’t deep. For when he crashed through hands first, he felt the muck on the bottom panicking. He tried to stand up but his head bashed the ice that hadn’t broken, and he was down again in pain. For a second, maybe seconds, he didn’t move. Stunned, maybe at the throbbing wound, but stunned that this may be it. No more Alzheimer’s. No more pity. No more dreaming of Nazis. Nothing. The ice cold didn’t bother him. Nothing did. Nothing mattered. He drifted like a dream. Under the ice, under the oxygen; this was it.

Then something happened. Hands gliding over the bottom, he felt something. It wasn’t a rock. It wasn’t a stick. It was unnatural, and he recognized it. He was right! The kids were right! He fought to close his frozen hand around it. He would show those idiots he wasn’t dead, he wasn’t crazy. He would live. He must live. He tried to stand. Ice everywhere. No air. Ice. His chest hurt, everything hurt. Life! God give me life! Then it happened.

The ice around him broke up at the hammer of a pickaxe. Boots. Noises. Voices! The villagers were clawing at the ice to him and he clawed back. He must live! He had survived the Nazis, and he would survive this! In a moment he was pulled from the deep. Life filled his lungs. It was cold. So cold. Alert and limp he was dragged to the shore by big burly hands. They all collapsed around him, and in the excitement they barely noticed what was in the old man’s hand.

They were Danes. They knew they had minutes to remove the man’s clothes or he would die. One by one his garments were slopped aside and his white nakedness matched the snow. He wouldn’t let go. He helped them as best he could shivering violently. He wouldn’t let go. He mustn’t let go. Then it was numb. All numb. Tired. He was so tired. It was time to dream.

All of the sudden he was in a bed. Hot. Thank God! Hot under layers of wool. Hot like in a crib; hot like a Christmas morning fire. He didn’t let go. But it wasn’t just him. People were everywhere in the room talking. Amazed; frantic at the old eyes that just opened. And aside him, in the bed, was warm as he was, was the object he didn’t let go.

And then they told him what happened. When he passed out he didn’t let go. They pried his huge fingers off of it and he flailed like a seizure. Clothes off, they immediately gave it back to him and he calmed. All the way through the rocks they carried him home as it dragged on the ground by a strong grip. No one really cared or noticed until he was in bed what exactly happened.

The old man, the old child, was glowing. From under the wool he brought it out and all eyed were fixed upon him. It. The whole thing. Alzheimer’s. His Life. Everything.

The helmet was gold. Gold and rusty iron with embellishment of dragons. It was Celtic. No, it was Viking, but it was glowing just as he said it was. That day, long ago before the war, he froze at the face of a warrior. A young face white like his. Cold blue eyes and a fine gold helmet. Dead, but maybe alive. Maybe crying, maybe screaming, but definitely terrifying. The young boy ran off, everyone ran off as fast as they could; and the legend began. The helm, still soiled with mud was cleared with old fingers, young, excited fingers. With every swipe came a stag, a deer, and stunning knots of a conqueror. The villagers gasped with silence. A reverence. Reverence for him. Not so much the helmet, but for the man who was not crazy, the man whom they dismissed. And it, he; was beautiful. Beautiful as the day he was born. He was the treasure. Not the precious gold, not the warrior: but the man.