On Frozen Pond

Corbin had been watching the clouds for the last forty-five minutes as they gradually darkened over the mountain peaks. He knew a system was moving in & that storms were expected by evening, but he had hoped to reach the cabin before they hit. He was close—only seventeen miles to go—but the road from here would be narrow & winding, with frequent steep drops off the shoulder, & the freezing drizzle had begun.

He pulled off to the side of the road. Best to put the tire chains on now before the real mountain driving began.

His nerves were fraying. This was not how he wanted to start this trip. He needed some time away—away from everyone & everything. The pressure inside of him had been building for years, perhaps even decades. The jokes he didn’t get, the conversations he couldn’t quite follow, the times he had been left out. He liked people, he really did. He wanted to be included, to make friends & be a friend. But he never quite knew what to say or do, how to connect.

There were times when he’d been part of a group & he would think things had gone well. He visited, told stories, people laughed. The next day, however, his phone would remain silent & people barely seemed to notice him or even say hi. He could hear them talking at their workstations about plans for the weekend…, until they saw him. Then their voices would drop low as they turned away & huddled together.

At times he had become paranoid, knowing they were talking about him. But at least that meant having been seen. At other times he reassured himself with the thought that he wasn’t sufficiently important to warrant conversation. But that meant feeling invisible.

He needed to be alone for a while. Time at the cabin, knowing a storm was coming, bringing plenty of provisions, paper & the only friend he had ever been able to trust—his manual typewriter—he had to do this. He needed time to gather his thoughts & put them to paper if he was ever again to believe that he had worth…, or even existed.

Still not to the overlook. Seventeen miles take a long time when you dare not drive even twenty miles per hour. It feels longer yet when you’re gripping the steering wheel so tightly your knuckles turn white. Looking at the odometer in his pickup he guessed there were at least ten miles to go.

Corbin’s fingers began to do the stiff & erratic dance that happened when he got upset, down on himself, or was in the midst of a lengthy conversation. Sitting, it usually began with a bouncing knee. Then he would be clenching & unclenching his fists, contorting his fingers into twisted, claw-like shapes so full of tension they would tremble. When it became too much, he would shake out both hands, loosening them up, only to begin again. He didn’t know why he did this & tried to keep it hidden from others. All he knew was that it helped him to listen & to cope.

Now, while straining to see the road, his mind wandered back to the reason for this trip, for choosing the cabin in the face of a storm.

She had not caused him to think about death. He’d thought about it ever since sitting with his family in the room where his grandpa’s casket sat. He was only two. But from then on, he & his two older brothers would lie in bed talking about how each of them would prefer to go. Ironically, as they all laid there fighting against sleep, the favorite answer had been “in my sleep, just like grandpa.” Fall asleep. Wake up in heaven. Nice.

But when young Corbin had fallen asleep, it was often to a set of recurring nightmares, most involving cars, sometimes driving off on their own with him alone in the back seat, other times careening off the side of a dam or cliff. When he awoke, it was with a start, not to find himself in heaven but trembling in bed, begging his older brother to stay awake until he fell asleep again.

At the age of twelve he had even considered taking his own life. His mother had told him that the age of innocence (when a child would automatically be taken to heaven if they died), lasted through a child’s twelfth year. He seriously considered not allowing himself to turn thirteen, not because he was itching for heaven but because he was desperate not to go to hell.

He needed to put this to paper. That’s why he needed the cabin, why he wanted to be snowed in with nothing but his typewriter, a warm fire & lots of food, tea & water. He needed to prove to himself that both he & what he felt were real, even if no one else ever saw it.

The road was getting slushy now. “Clench the fists, dance with the fingers. Focus on the road. Don’t get hypnotized by the falling snow in your headlights.”

There were no tracks on the road in front of him & Corbin understood why. The slush was getting deeper, pulling his car one way or the other without warning. Five miles per hour was all he dared drive. Sometimes he found himself so close to the mountain or cliff he had to back up & try again, steering hard against the slush to create a new path. Each time he could hear the chains slapping & scraping off the newly pressed ice before they found something to grab.

For a moment he caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a widening of the road. Was this it? He stopped the pickup, grabbed his gloves & flashlight, & went to check it out. Once he was clear of the truck, Corbin directed the beam to the slushy snow directly in front of him.

The wind had picked up & it was becoming bitterly cold, turning his cheeks a near-frozen red. He tested the ground just in front of him with the toe of his boot. It was solid. He took a step. He moved this way until he felt the curb. It was the overlook. He had less than three miles to go. He hoped the pickup could make it.

He looked back. He could barely make out the headlights through the snow, but they were still there. He turned to face the overlook again, the toes of both boots pressed firmly against the curb. He could see nothing but the heavy clusters of snowflakes falling directly in front of him, brushing his cheeks & nose & stinging his eyes.

Corbin knew that just a few feet in front of him there was a cliff, dropping over a hundred feet into a jagged pile of rocks. Five years ago, he would have been tempted to take that walk. That’s when she had left.

He knew he needed to get back to the truck, but his thoughts kept him frozen. He had first met Heather at college at the beginning of freshman year. By homecoming they were dating. By junior year he was in love.

He planned his proposal: a candlelight dinner overlooking the lake, barbershop quartet singing in the gazebo just far enough away to be in the background & not too intrusive. After the meal a friend would come up from behind to offer dessert, allowing him to get down on one knee with the ring. The quartet would begin singing, “I Love You Truly”. As she turned back, he would open the box & ask her to marry him.

Everything had gone perfectly... until she said, “No.”

She wasn’t ready. He had no idea what to do next. He just remained there, kneeling, with his arms stretched out holding the ring, as though still waiting for an answer.

So, she made an offer. “I could move in with you.”

The quartet had begun singing “Bicycle Built for Two” before they noticed anything was wrong & faltered to a stop. Corbin felt the tension building in his hands & fingers, his head spinning, but somehow managed to take her hand & stand up. They had an awkward embrace. He felt completely numb…

…but agreed.

Seven years later, she told him it wasn’t working. She was in love with someone she had been seeing for some time. He watched her pack & for the first time realized how little she had there. Shortly after, he began to hear stories. She had always been seeing other guys, several of them close friends who told him the many mocking & derisive things she said about him behind his back.

He had never seen it coming. So stupid. Worthless.

He tried dating others. One had said, “No,” & he felt worse. The next said, “Yes,” but never showed. He waited for two hours, feeling lower with each passing minute. Another went out with him once or twice & suddenly became unavailable. The rest were a blur of failures.

His ego had been crashing from the moment Heather left. But yesterday had finished him. He asked a co-worker out for drinks. She never got to “No.” She looked at him with a funny kind of disbelief & then began to laugh. That’s the way she left him, laughing & shaking her head.

He was done.

Standing at the edge of the overlook, he felt nothing. Tears froze on his cheeks & flaked away in the wind.

He needed the cabin, to type it out, take inventory & figure out how to go on. He returned to his pickup, noting that the slush was beginning to freeze solid & the snow to drift.

It took another hour, but he made it. He had to get unstuck & plow through several mean drifts, but he made it.

The driveway was sheltered with trees, holding back the storm’s ferocity & allowing the snow to fall more evenly, though just as heavy & deep. The snow glistened beneath the yard light. Perhaps it was relief after all he had endured, but to Corbin it was beyond beautiful

The cabin had already drifted in. He would have to dig just to free the door. He tried to remember where they kept the shovel. The drifts next to the cabin where he liked to park were already several feet deep. But there was a stretch of yard directly in front of him that looked possible. The snow was not only level but also appeared to be more shallow.

As he pulled into the yard, thinking all he wanted was his sleeping bag for the night, he heard a strangely familiar crackle, then a loud crack as he arrived in the middle.

This was not the lawn.

It was the pond…

…& it was deep.

Another crack & a surge of water over snow & ice as the front end of the pickup fell a couple of feet. Corbin tried his door, but it was stuck. Water pooled around his boots. He pulled the keys from the ignition & assembled his escape tool attached to the keyring. The back window was thick with ice, so he removed his seatbelt & drove the tool into his side window until it cracked & he could push it free. He began crawling through, preparing to distribute his weight across the ice by lying down & inching his way through the snow…

…all that snow…

…so deep…

…barely able to see, straining, the fatigue of the night & the falling snow…

…just so tired…

…the cabin & sleep, still so far, so hard…,

…so tired….

Corbin sighed…

…& sat back down in the cab.

He removed his hood, breathed in & savored the cold night air for a moment, then laid back his head & closed his eyes.