Four Little Coffins

Alaska is cold, not in the simplistic way that most winters are cold but all the time. Today, the air feels especially thin. Funerals always leave an undeniable chill in the air that can only be thawed by the passing of time. Sitting in the uncomfortable chairs, being there to support the town could not take away from the reality of today. Small coffins lined the front of the room surrounded by weeping adults, some the parents and others half relieved it was not their own children. Four coffins, why there’s not five of them, we may never know. My feet dangled above the ground as my mother reached for my hand to walk me up to say goodbye to four pairs of frozen lips.

I felt all eyes on me as I walked beside my mother. I thought back to three days before, the screams still filling my mind, my friends drowning as I stood there frozen, unable to move on my ice block. It took all of me to climb up, to survive. We just went out to check the poles. We should have waited, we were supposed to wait but at eight years old, we felt like we knew exactly what we were doing. We thought we did until the ice started to crack around us. I watched Emma fall first into the frozen water. Her screams echoed into the water and we did not know what to do so we ran. We ran as fast as we could without looking back. I heard another scream and then silence as Eric fell into the water. I kept running.

Timothy grabbed my hand. He was falling and I tried with all my might to pull him up with me but the waters were pulling him down. His fingers slipped from mine, me and Belamy ran as fast as we could and then we felt the ice fall behind us. We were both stuck on separate blocks of ice holding on for dear life. I watched as Belamy, the youngest of us all, sat on her block of ice until it cracked in the middle and heard her scream as she fell into the water. I screamed, louder than I had ever screamed in my entire life. The men from the city came to the barrier between the frozen pond and the woods as my friend's bodies floated to the top.

I saw their open eyes frozen staring into mine. I waited for the water to take me to. I waited to join my friends but when I awoke I was lying in a hospital bed with my mother asleep on the end of the bed. The screams were still echoing in my mind, their faces still consuming my thoughts. Why did I have to live, why did I have to carry on? My fingers were wrapped but every part of my body still felt like ice. My mother looked up, tears streaming down her face and held me. I looked up to see the parents of my friends standing outside of my room crying, thankful to see that I was alive. I did not know how to be thankful when everyone that I loved was not.

So, I walked with my mother to say goodbye. I walked past the staring faces and the sorrowful glares. I looked them in the eyes one last time. I felt the warmth of my mom’s hand one last time. Then I looked down upon the funeral and realized the truth, it was mine. I saw all of my friends standing in front of me saying goodbye. In the last moments of my breath, I was able to say goodbye to each one of them before they said their final goodbye to me. Emma placed a red rose next to my side. Timothy put one of our toy cars in my hand. Eric, my best friend of all, left our summer bucket list. Bellamy, the youngest of us all, would not let go of my hand. Their parents took them away and I closed my eyes one last time. In my own mind I survived but instead one was traded for four and this seemed fair.