Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

When I woke up it was cold, very cold, the stove had gone out; "Oh no," I muttered, I had feared that this day would come. With faint hope, I got up to re-light the stove, but it was useless, the gas had run out. I felt a lump growing in my throat as the grim reality of my situation sunk in. I had become too comfortable in my little abode on the ice, and now it seemed that I would have to leave it. I had known all along this day would come, but I had failed to adequately prepare myself for it, physically, mentally, and emotionally. The dread was becoming nearly unbearable; so much I did not want to bear what was now waiting for me.
I knew what was coming; the cold would just creep in at first, and then quickly overwhelm my entire shelter. I was fighting the onslaught of panic. Choking back some tears brought on by the hopelessness I was feeling, I had to act; doing what logic dictated was next, not doing what I felt I should do next, for my feelings were overwhelmed. We all tend to take the path of least resistance, and relying on feelings to predominate our decisions is that path. At times like this we need to abandon that pattern and actually think what it is we need to do, every step of the way.
It was getting colder by the minute, and I knew that most survival guides would tell you to stay with the wreckage of the distressed vessel in a crash or emergency situation, but in the cold I believed different. I don’t think that sitting around in the cold is a good idea, especially when I knew that no one was looking for me anyway. I had convinced my self that I had to go and that it was the only chance I had.
I had torn one of my wool blankets into strips, and I had hung these strips to keep them dry. Retreating back inside I sat on what was left of the lower bunk and wrapped my feet in these wool strips; they would serve as my boots. I flung my coat on over my shoulders, it was cold inside, and so I pulled some of my remaining blankets over me to keep me warm while I waited for the coat liner to warm up.
It was still very dark, I lifted the deck hatch and looked at the stars, and they were magnificent. I stood there and stared at the sky for some time, all those stars displayed like that seemed to calm my nerves. I climbed outside onto the deck, and then jumped carefully down onto the frozen ocean.
The days were less than four hours long up here at this time of year so I would have to use the stars to navigate. I knew where the sun rose, and I knew where the sun set, but that was about all I knew about star navigation. I had never done it before. I would have to find the North Star and then figure out which way was south east, I figured that was the best direction to walk, and that was about where the sun rose, so I could use the sun as a guide in the morning hours.
I looked to find the plough, I some how knew that if I used the plough it would point me at the North Star. I really didn't know for sure how, I didn't even know what or where the plough was, I just recalled my fifth grade teacher saying the sentence; "To locate the North Star first you find the plough and it will point you to the North Star." But I wasn't paying attention, and didn't even look up from my desk to see what he was talking about. I recalled thinking, When will I ever need to know how to find some star millions of miles away? …What a stupid teacher.
I think the plough is the big dipper, or at least part of it, I tried lining up the stars on the big dipper and seeing if any of them pointed to a star that might be the North Star. One thing I knew for sure was that the North Star was the only star that did not move. But I was not sure how to find it, if only I had just looked up from my desk all those years ago to see what it was the teacher was pointing at as he described how to locate the North Star. Of all the things to come back and bite me in the ass, this has got to be the worst.
In the glow of the night my signal fire loomed haphazardly against the pristine white snow that had drifted lightly over the pack ice, smoothing all of the jagged edges of the crushed and pushed about ice. Hiding the violent turmoil it had suffered under a soft white blanket. I grabbed a stick about five feet long and pulled it from the signal fire pile. I recognized it as the doorjamb from the head. I found another part of the jam and broke it off to about four feet long. I used my foot to break it, and since all I had was a piece of blanket for a boot it really hurt my foot to break the piece of wood.
I stood the longer piece of wood up by jamming it into the crusty surface on the ice. Then kneeling in the snow with the shorter stick I sighted it with what I hoped was the Polar Star. When I had it perfectly lined up I jammed the stick into the snow covered ice and stabilized and made sure the alignment was perfect. I piled some more snow and ice chunks around the sticks and made sure they were secure and accurate. I would check them again in about twenty minutes to see if they were still lined up with the star. If it still was it would confirm if I had found the North Star, as it is the only one that does not move in the sky, at least I think that is what my teacher had said.
I knocked down part of the frozen blankets to gain access to my shelter, rather than climb up onto the deck and drop in, since I would not need the wall any more. It was very cold out, at least twenty or thirty below; it is always very cold when there is a clear sky up here at this time of year. But now it was feeling colder inside than it was outside. I think it must have been about four o'clock in the morning but I had no way of knowing for sure. I decided I was as rested as I was going to get, so I was going to have to leave as soon as possible.
I quickly opened up four boxes of Kraft dinner. But I found that all my water had already frozen solid, so I just ate the cheese out of the pouch and munched on the noodles. It took all the stamina I could muster to force myself to eat all four boxes, the cheese dried my mouth and the ice cold noodles were hard for my teeth to grind into a swallow-able state, and it didn’t taste all that great. I tried to drink one of the seven Lucky beers’ I had left; even though they also were already frozen. My mouth was coated with cheese and chunks of dry macaroni noodles; I really could have used a drink.
I decided to try to get the signal fire going, I had planned on using the flame from the stove as a source of ignition for the fire, but now that was gone. I thought there might be a small amount of propane that was ignitable still in the empty tank. Perhaps if I took the line off the tank and tried to use my striker right at the valve on the bottle there would be enough gas come out to ignite a small flame I could use to light some kindling to get the fire going.
I found a particularly well-splintered piece of thin wood paneling from the signal fire pile and broke it up a bunch more. I then got my crescent wrench and adjusted it to fit the nut, it was very cold and spinning the adjuster nut on the crescent wrench seemed to be a bit of a chore for numbed fingers. At first I forgot that the nut was a reverse thread, as it is on all flammable gas bottles, and instead of loosening it, I tightened it, and I also rounded the soft brass nut a little bit when the crescent wrench slipped off. I was afraid that I might have damaged the nut too badly to be able to get it off now.
It was too dark to see very well what kind of shape the nut was in and I could not get the wrench back on the nut very well. At the only place where it would slip back on to the nut I was already out of stroke on the wrench so I could not turn the nut to loosen it. I would have to remove the tank from its mounting spot if I were going to get the line nut to loosen off. A steel band was wrapped around the middle of the tank to hold it in place; it was fastened tight by a three eighths inch bolt that was about two inches long. Using my bare exposed fingers I readjusted the crescent until it fit the nut on the bolt. With an aching cold grip I tried to loosen it. To my dismay the whole bolt turned, I would need something to hold the bolt still if I was to be able to loosen the nut and remove it from the bolt.
In the cold the effect of every failure is emotionally many times worse than when preserving body heat is not a factor. Your mind must continually manage your body's energy needs and temperature loss with each activity, some times abandoning a course of action for reasons that on a warm day would seem insignificant. I was wasting precious time and heat energy trying to do this, and in the end it might all be for nothing. I was very close to abandoning my efforts all together, and so I took a break from it. Not really sure if I was ever going to take a second try at it.
After a while, with the feeling returning to my numb fingers, I convinced my self to give it another try. I had come up with a plan, some way to hold the bolt from turning so I could spin off the nut. I tore some of the dangling electrical wiring from inside the boat where I had torn out some of the bulkheads. I wrapped the wire around the shank of bolt and made it as snug as possible. Then as I turned the bolt I let the wire feed on to the bolt more and more till it began to jam up. At least that was the plan, it didn’t work so well and the bolt just spun inside the coil of wire.
Frustrated, I had to come up with something to get that bolt out of there. If I could just jamb the bolt somehow so it wouldn’t spin; I had a new idea. I used the crescent wrench to twist the end of the bracket and bend it so that a bit of the flange now crowded one of the flanks on the bolt head. I then turned the nut once more, it worked, and I was able to remove the nut from the bolt. With the clamp removed from the tank I was able to move the tank so that I had clearance for the crescent wrench to swing and remove the brass-fitting nut on the gas line.
As I repositioned the tank I noticed that it still had some weight to it, this meant that it still must have gas in it. The very cold night air must have frozen the propane in the tank so that it no longer had any pressure. I removed the fitting and turned the gas valve on, I could hear a small amount of gas escaping and it smelled strong, it smelled like propane. I turned the tank upside down, and positioning the baked beans can, I reopened the gas valve, and about a half of a cup of liquid propane came out and into the can.
I poured the liquid propane onto the kindling, and using the striker I tried to light it. After several tries with the striker the fuel lit, and an orange flame grew into a ball about the size of a basket ball for a few seconds, long enough to cause the kindling to light. I quickly positioned the burning kindling within the signal fire pile. Before to long the fire was roaring and I warmed myself in the growing flames.
I positioned the propane tank as close to the fire as I dare, and hoped that it would warm the tank up enough so that the gas would flow again and I could re-light my stove. I had the wall flap open and the radiant heat of the fire warmed the entire inside of my shelter, it felt so good to get that wave of heat that I thought I might never feel again. After some time, however it was all too short of a time, the fire began to die down. I decided it was time to reconnect the tank to the stove line and see if my stove would light.
The stove lit with ease and when I closed the wall flap up again it warmed up inside my shelter nicely, but it took all four burners to do it. Once it warmed up, I turned off all but one burner, and decided I would go back to sleep, get as much rest as I could, and prepare for the hike during the daylight hours and then set off at sunset. I cozied up in my bunk as best I could and tried to fall asleep. I would need as much rest as possible if I were to survive my hike.
As I lay there I couldn’t sleep; I was trying to figure out how I was going to navigate my way east to the Alaska shoreline. Having lived in the age of global positioning satellites and other high tech tracking and navigation systems now incorporated into most cell phones, I had only ever heard of a sextant, let alone having never learned to use one or how they worked. I didn’t have one anyway, but if I knew how they worked I could probably build something like it that would work. I decided that the two sticks I stuck in the snow were a good start; it was something I could work with. I came up with more than a few ideas before I eventually drifted off to sleep.
I woke up early in the morning, well at sunrise, which comes at about eleven am around here. I then realized that I had forgotten to double-check my navigation sticks to see if I had pointed them at the North Star or not. I would have to assume that they were right, that it was the North Star, and judging by where the sun always rose each morning, so it seemed like I was at least close to the right star. I took a bearing and got an offset angle between the North Star direction and where the sun was rising. I figured that a sort of southwesterly direction would be a good direction to travel.
I also carefully paced off the distance between the two sticks and eyed across the top of them from the taller stick to the shorter stick and memorized the spot on the ground where they lined up. I marked this spot and double-checked it, it took a few tries but I finally got the right spot marked. I then paced off the distance from the short stick to the mark I put on the ground; I did this several times to make sure the number was accurate.
The distance between the two sticks was five heel to toe paces, and the distance to the mark on the ground was seven heal to toe paces. The difference in height of the two sticks was two and a half paces. These measurements were to be the standard that I would use in determining where I was. I would bring the sticks along and each night use them to site the North Star. Then with the sticks set so that they lined up with the star, I would then pace off the position of the sticks and the point that they indicated on the ground when sighting down the sticks. I knew that all the elements of the equation were there if I did that, I just had to figure out how to work the equation.
I had to figure out what all that would mean; I knew that it would mean something, and that sighting the North Star in such a way would give me a solid reference for direction. I reasoned that since we were sighting the North Star, and that the world was round, I should be able to calculate my progress on the hike. I just had to come up with a working theory so that I could calculate it correctly.
"Let me think, if I took a reading of the Polar Star, and I paced off the distances between the sticks and all that, and lets say it was farther apart on each measurement, but the stick height difference remained the same, what would that mean?" I mumbled out loud. "Okay, if it was only half a foot or so then it would not mean much, unless I was able to keep everything very accurate." I continued, talking out loud to myself. "Suppose I was able to keep things accurate, what would it mean then?"
"If I was at the equator, would the distance be very far apart on the sticks to line them up to the North Star? Or would they be closer? Actually the stick would need to be closer to the same length as each other, or even reversed the long stick to the south of the short stick before they would line up with the North Star. What does that mean?" I pondered the problem. "I know! If the sticks need to be farther apart or closer to the same length of each other to line up with the North Star, then I have traveled more south!" I answered my own question.
"Is the inverse true? If it is not then the whole theory is useless and wrong. Let me picture this, if I was on the North Pole, then the sticks would have to be very close together, and one would have to be much longer than the other, nearly infinitely longer before it would align with the Polar Star. So yes! The inverse was true!" I was glad to have been able to get my mind around that problem, I was much more confident that I might make it somewhere now.
My next problem was footwear, I had no boots or shoes they had all been lost at sea. I was pretty sure I could not get too far without some kind of boot or shoe. The propane stove was still burning so I climbed back into my bunk and lay down as I tried to think of some way to come up with a boot or something. It's strange how we have a North Star, I thought. I am not sure but I think it’s about a hundred light years away, traveling at the speed of light it would take a hundred years to get there! Amazing! Sometimes my mind wanders when I can't think up an answer to a problem right away.
I had to try to concentrate on something to use to make shoes out of; "I got cardboard, I got some plastic garbage bags, I got socks, some blankets, wood, and even a little rope, what else do I have?" I was still stumped; I could not come up with any footwear design that was satisfactory. I still had several pairs of socks that were stored in one of the garbage bags under the bunk; they were dirty, as they were in my laundry bag. "I guess I could just wear all my socks at once, and put garbage bags over them and then another pair of socks over that to hold the garbage bags on and to give me some traction." It was all I could come up with so far.
I was not completely satisfied with that solution but it at least this satisfied my mind enough for now so that I could continue preparing all the other things I would need for the journey. I turned my attention to water; if I were to survive any amount of time at all I would need water. I would have to melt as much snow and ice as I could on the stove before it ran out of gas. I did not know how long the gas would last, so every minute counted as important; there was no time to waste.
But again I had a problem; with only empty beer cans to use as canteens, I was not confident that they would be suitable to travel with. They are awkward to carry and might spill before I ever get to drink them. The other problem would be if they froze, I would have to carry my water under my clothes to keep it from freezing, but in this weather, if they leaked or spilled and soaked my clothes it might prove deadly. I could have also used some kind of large pot to melt snow in, but I had nothing like that.
I knew that eating snow or ice was dangerous because the energy needed to melt snow or ice was huge. The amount of BTUs required to change the state of ice or snow into water might plunge my body into hypothermia. Again I had a problem that I could not easily solve. Perhaps I could build something that I could use as a sled and drag it behind me full of firewood and I could build a fire to melt snow and warm myself by when I needed it.
I put all the empty beer cans I had on the stove crammed them as full of ice and snow as possible to melt them into water. I will drink as much water as I can before I head out, if I hydrated myself enough before I left it might give me a chance. This was something I learned from when I used to drive race cars, when I had a hundred lap races to run I would drink as much water as possible the day before and on the day of the race.
It would get well over a hundred degrees inside one of those stock cars on a hot day, and if you did not prepare yourself for it you would dry up like a raisin in there. I recalled the first time I drove a hundred lap race, I was unprepared; I had not hydrated myself. The combination of the heat of the day, the heat of the engine, and the extreme heat from the header pipes from the exhaust system causing the floor boards under my feet to glow bright orange all combining to create oven like conditions. But it was the wind blowing in through the window net that was the deceptive foe.
At first, the air blowing against my face and body felt good, and provided some relief from the heat; not a lot of relief, but any amount was welcome. I was not driving my own car this weekend; I was driving for a race car owner by the name of Roger Harrison. He asked me to drive his car for him this weekend because he said his girlfriend saw me racing some where and thought I would do well in their car. He already knew me and had seen me race lots of times, we even raced against each other a lot, and when she said that he said it just clicked, that I would be a good choice.
We had driven through the night in Rodgers motor home pulling the racecar on its trailer behind us. When he had stopped by the house to pick me up I brought my son Simon along with me. Roger had brought his nieces and nephews with him as well as one of his regular pit crewmembers. Roger kind of looked like Kenny Rodgers and I commented that "This was just like the movie Six Pack!" at which everyone agreed and laughed, coincidentally they had all seen the movie the night before.
Six Pack was a movie starring Kenny Rodgers and a bunch of kids who traveled around in a motor home pulling a racecar from track to track trying to make a living at it. We had no such illusion, but if I could pull off a good finish this weekend we would come out ahead, this was one of the biggest races of the year. Sometime in the night I fell asleep in the back of the motor home. I would need my sleep, practice started at six am.
In the wee dawn hours of the morning, with the sun just barely sending its first rays over our heads and hiding the stars, I was awakened by the sound of those big four barrels opening up on that four sixty big block Ford that powered the motor home. The cornering g-forces didn't help me sleep much either so I got up to see what was going on.
As it turned out we were close to the race track and we were meeting several other weary travelers pulling race cars from all different places and meeting on the last stretch of highway before the race track. So naturally the race was on, motor homes all pulling racecars racing each other down the winding highway. "I want to make the papers this weekend but I also want to be able to read them!" I said to Roger as he pulled out to pass the motor home racecar hauler in front of us.
He told me not to worry and to get some sleep, but it was not easy not to worry a bit, especially with kids in the motor home and the six empty beer cans on the floor between the seats was of little comfort as well. I comforted my self with a little math, Greg, Rodgers pit crewman probably drank three and Roger the other three, and it been over about six or more hours, "so he should be okay". I told myself. I went back to bed and tried to get some sleep.
Ironically, it would be a drunk driver that would kill Rodger a few years later. He was on his way to the funeral of John Bochma, who was another racing friend of ours. I had not heard of either of there deaths until over a year after they had died. I ran into another racing competitor at a race track thousands of miles away from the tracks we used to race at; we recognized each other and he said in passing: “You know that Rodger died right?” of course I had not, and it hit me like a ton of bricks.
The race schedule that day was heavy, we would race over two hundred laps that day, time trials, that lined us up for a ten lap shoot out that determined the position of the hundred lapper. Then the field is divided up according to our finishing position and we would run another fifty-lap race, the top eighteen finishers of that advance to a bonus race, where winner takes all and that was another fifty laps. Then the hundred lap main event by that time it was dark and it was under the lights.
At first we were not handling real good, but we kept working on the car and adjusting on it and by main event time we were the fastest car on the track. At some point, Jimmy Joyce, a very good racer in a very fast car, the favorite to win almost anywhere, had to make an unscheduled pit stop, and I was leading the race and so I came up on him when he got on the track. He was fast, and so I contented my self with just following him since he was a lap down anyway.
I then thought my visor on my helmet was fogging up. I tried wiping it but it was no use. So I cracked it open a little bit to allow more air to blow behind it to defog it. But it got worse. I opened the visor fully and I still could see nothing but a foggy view, through it. All I could do was catch the glint of the track lights as they flashed off Jimmy's racecar as it passed under them, and that was how I knew where I was; I just followed the glint off his car. It was all I could see, and it was getting harder and harder to see even that. I wondered how it was that anybody could in the increasing fog.
It was a strange feeling to lay your foot into the eight hundred cubic feet per minute Holly double pumper carburetor bolted atop a six hundred plus horse power race engine and wind it out when you are completely blinded. But no one else was slowing down so why should I? At some point I blinked, and my eye lids stuck shut, I was able to force them open, but it was unnerving when someone is rubbing your back bumper while you’re coming into the corner at about a hundred miles an hour and your eyes don’t want to open.
When they did open I could see much more clearly, so I blinked again, each time forcing them open, and my vision was totally restored and I could see clearly again. It was not till then that I realized that there was no fog, that the fog was within my own eyes, I was the only one who could not see. I had become so dehydrated that my tear ducts were unable to keep my eyes moist. Also, I had not blinked for a long time, so that hadn't helped much, and all the water in my eyes had dried up. This relief only lasted about half a lap and my vision was clouding up again. I had to force my self to blink twice each lap, once on the front stretch and once on the back stretch and then I had to increase it to four times, while in the turns at each end of the track I had to remember to blink as well.
It was very distracting, it seemed I had barely enough time to blink; so much would be happening in that instant that my eyes were shut. I ended up slipping back to third place; I blame that on lack of hydration that caused my eyes to dry up, and distracting me so that two cars passed me. It was a lesson I never forgot; I always drank lots of water before each race after that. In answer to the common question of what do racers do when they have to take a leak real bad during a race? Well, you figure it out.
I drank the water as fast as the stove could melt the snow and ice, trying to hydrate myself, but it was a slow awkward process. I found that I was still not too fond of leaving my woebegone abode.
I knew I only had less than a few hours of propane left, and when it ran out this place would surely become my frozen entomb. Die sleeping in here or die walking that was the choice I had to make. I thought I had made up my mind, but as time passed I was finding that I felt frustrated because I did not believe that I would reach safety before I succumbed. Some how it was no longer satisfying to die trying, I wanted success but I did not believe I would achieve it. Even so I would walk, I would not stay and die in my sleep, as satisfying and easy as it would be to do so, but I would walk, it was what I always would do.
Why the hell didn’t I let my self die that first night? It would all be over, now I had to walk God only knows how far and then when all my fingers and toes have fallen off by frostbite, and I experience even more pain and frustration I might finally die. Sometimes it seemed like I was a mouse and there was some giant cat beating me around and across the kitchen floor but never killing me. But I hoped this would be different, this was the lesson that would teach me how to get things right, all I had to do was overcome and blessings would follow. Perhaps this time things would be different.
I hated being bitter, and I had resisted it my whole life, but now, knowing it was all over, it was hard not to be. I only ever tried to do what was right; things of character, and use hardship as a character builder, and endure the difficult things, but now, at the end of it all it seemed pointless. I could see no confirmation in my life that any of it was right, that I was even close to being on the right path.
But the truth is I did not want confirmation, "more blessed are those who believe and do not see" were the words that were whispered in my ear every time I wanted some kind of blessing that would confirm I was on the right track. If the blessing was available, I could only receive it at the expense of my treasures stored in heaven. In faith I had to stand strong, not observation; the kingdom of heaven does not come with observation.
Still part of me cried, "God is like my enemy! He swallows me up, swallows all my favorite things and places, he destroys everything I held true from my youth, and when I am sorrow full he does not comfort me, he increases my mourning!" He tells me truth, and I find no earthly comfort in it, for there is none, for all is death, dust and echoes, there is no significance in it".
But then more words come, “Touch not the oil and the wine.” I had always taken this to mean that if I thought things were bad now just wait! So I always accepted the crescendo of woes until they reach their climax and something breaks. It is from the book of Revelations in the Bible; it is supposed to be some prophecy about world wide economic collapse. But not until now do I understand what it means; it is not a prophecy about economics! It was not a bitter scold instead of a comfort in hard times at all! Touch not the oil and the wine! It means when you are beaten and crushed by the difficulties, squeezed in the winepress of this life, if come out smooth like olive oil and sweet like wine you will never be touched! Not even a hair on your head shall perish, even if you are killed!
I put on all my socks except for two pairs, pulled garbage bags over them, and then I tore up the bottom of the beer case and made souls out of them and put them inside my last pairs of socks and pulled them on over the garbage bags. This would have to serve as a boot. I drank some more of the water as the ice and snow melted on the stove. I had thought about bringing some firewood along but I nixed that idea, I wanted to travel as light as possible. But I would bring all the blankets I could carry.
I cut holes in three of the blankets to make a poncho out of them, and then I laid the other four out on top of each other and placed everything else that I thought would be useful in the middle of them. I packed my crescent wrench, it was the only heavy object I had; I could use it to chip ice or something. I thought. I had five cans of lucky beer left, so I brought them along, plus all the empty cans I had. I also packed the last of the Kraft dinner, and two soggy loafs of bread, now frozen, they might still be edible, and I might eat them if I’m starving or something, but they were so soggy with salt water I was not sure I would ever be that hungry.
It was nearly dark so I decided the time was right to head off, it was now or never. I tied the four corners of the sheet together, the contents of my makeshift knapsack contained with in. I brought my striker, and every scrap of anything that I could. I tore all the loose wiring out that I could and packed it in with everything else. I dug as many old screws and nails out of the walls as I could and packed those along also. I even sifted the ashes of the fire and collected every hinge and nail and screw or hasp that I could find and packed those as well. I also put the last of the big green garbage bags into the mix.
I didn’t know what I would need them for but I recalled and old Dyck Van Dyke show where they were lost in the desert some how and Dyck said the first rule of survival is "Don’t throw anything away". That was all I had ever learned about survival and it had served me well in the past. Or was it I love Lucy? "That’s what I need!" I exclaimed, "An ottoman!" But I was the only one who knew what I was talking about.
So off I headed, traveling southeast I hoped, but right away I knew it was not going to be easy. Walking in a straight line was impossible, this was all pack ice, ice wreckage is a better description, and it is all jammed together and frozen into clumps with jagged edges and obstacles making progress painfully slow. My makeshift footwear was working but I feared that it would fail just at the point of no return. After a couple of hours of tripping and slipping, and skinning my knees and slamming my elbows, I knew that I had not been able to walk a strait line. The way was very rough, and in the fast fading light I could still see the silhouette of what was left of my boat on the ice.
I walked through the darkness, carrying my blankets and supplies tied into a bag hanging on my navigation stick and slung over my shoulder. It was very bitter cold on my face, but my jacket and the poncho and my sock boots were keeping me warm. I had traveled for about six hours when I decided to take a break. I fished a box of Kraft dinner and a Lucky beer out of my knapsack. At least it was not windy tonight, and sitting on a chunk of heaved ice I ate the Kraft Dinner and drank the beer, then not wanting to get too comfortable I headed off.
The beer was not yet frozen, I had warmed them on the stove before packing them, but now they were very cold. So I took the four cans of beer and tucked them in my coat pockets under the poncho to keep them from freezing. I no longer could see where the boat was, so I stopped walking, realizing that I did not really know which way I was heading. I tried to pick distant land marks, larger chunks of ice and such for references, but my continual climbing around and over the rough ice surface caused me to loose sight of theses obscure references.
I set my navigation sticks up and found the North Star, lining them up as perfect as I could I got my bearings. I then determined that all I had to do for the most part was keep the North Star to my left, and then check my progress with the sticks. Since I could not see the stars during the day I would walk all night, and rest during the day. Except during sunrise I would walk towards the sun, this should bring me south, which I thought must be a good thing. But with each step I felt more and more helpless, it was slow and tiring progress and there was no way I could maintain any kind of course for very long.
It was now dark, but it was overcast, I could not see the stars, so navigation was impossible, but I continued to walk through the night. It was too cold to stop; if I stopped I would freeze to death for sure. The nights are long up here at this time of year, I kept up as vigorous pace as I could, but I had twisted my ankles several times as I tripped and slipped on the jagged surface of the ice. Persistence, determination, and steady unrelenting self-discipline were all that kept me going. The night seemed to last forever.
Then, so gradually that I had not immediately noticed it was getting lighter, the sun was rising. It would be almost noon, which is when the sun rises up here at this time of year. As it got brighter I realized that the sun was behind me, I had some how got turned around and began walking west in the night. All my effort through out the night was in the wrong direction. I fell to my knees in frustration, but I let my self fall too quickly and my knee landed on a sharp jagged piece of ice that was sticking up like some kind of man trap. The mixture of frustration, despair, and searing pain is recipe that at best must be an acquired taste.
My spirit was too distraught to give my leg the attentive rubbing and massage relief that might soothe the pain; I just let it hurt. My mind went blank, there was no solution to this problem, and I was even more lost than I already was, I know that doesn’t make any sense, lost is lost, but there is no denying it this is more lost. Without a thought in my mind I hunched over, sitting on my legs the top of my head resting on the ice, my eyes open in a blank stare looking at the world from an upside down position. I could not feel anything, not even the pain in my swollen ankles or the jab in my knee from the sharp ice. Neither could I feel the cold of the ice that the top of my head was resting on.
The short arctic day was over and I had not moved I didn’t even form one thought. It got dark, and some time in the night I thought I heard a voice. "Are you just going to give up?" it asked.
"Yeah" I responded, though I don’t know if I actually I spoke.
"It's all too hard for you then?" it asked.
"No, it’s not hard, it’s just boring, you bore me" I responded.
"I bore you? I think not! You’re just too weak, you failed." It answered.
"No, you bore me, its always the same old crap, things get bad then you make it worse, and after all these years I have grown weary of your lack of imagination." I told him.
"You dare to accuse me of having no imagination? Who do you think you are? It is you! You are weak and faithless, and I have defeated you!" he scolded me indignantly.
"I don’t give a flying damn! You bore me to the point of death, and I don’t give a damn what you think! Just shut up so I can die without hearing your boring useless voice."
"Don’t you want to die in peace?"
"Not at the expense of hearing another word from you!"
"Okay, come with me," he said as he grabbed me under the arm and lifted me high into the sky. It was all dark, not black; more of a midnight blue color everywhere. I sensed us leaving the realm of the earth, breaking out through the upper atmosphere and heading into deep space. He pointed me at a very distant faint speck of blue light, possibly millions of light-years away. It was the only thing visible in that area of space. It was as if it was the center of the universe. It was the umbra of all existence and this blue light struggled against being consumed by it.
I immediately began to travel towards this speck of light, and as quickly as the journey began I was there. The blue light was now a large blue dot type object that the entire universe and all creation turned on its axis or at least it seemed to, that was the presumption it expected from me. It seemed to slowly be rotating itself, but against the direction of the entire universe, as if it was counter balancing the rotation of the universe with it opposite rotation. And then it began to speak.
"I am everything!" it began, lightly pulsing its brightness on every syllable, as if to ensure that I knew who was talking. "All there is; is me, there is nothing else, everything there ever was or will be is within me. There is nothing more, everything you are has always been here right now." It continued speaking in very soft soothing tones, tones a mother would use to console a frightened child. Then again, it repeated; "I am everything! All there is; is me, there is nothing else, everything there ever was or will be is within me. There is nothing more, everything you are has always been here right now."
I could not completely accept what he was saying, I knew I had been elsewhere, I had not always been right here talking to this blue light. I recalled things, trees, dirt, grass; I had seen these things elsewhere. I tried to speak to ask about that but found my tongue was tied, I could not speak. I somehow knew it was that specific question that I was not allowed to speak so I thought up a new question. "What about angels? Where are they?" I asked.
"I am everything! All there is; is me…" he said repeating himself precisely.
"What about that guy who brought me here? Where is he?" I asked daring to probe further.
"I am everything! …" He repeated again word for word as before.
"Then what about me? If you are everything, and everything is within you, then how is it that I am on the outside looking at you? You’re just a ball of blue light!" I was now able to say my tongue some how had been released.
"I am everything! …" He again repeated the whole boring spiel.
"But what about God?" I asked; this time getting a violent reaction from him. He pulsed his light with great force. It was if I had been drop kicked it he chest and stomach by a lightening bolt, it knocked me tumbling backwards and as I tumbled I saw the pulse of light disperse through the whole universe.
Then it settled down again and in that same soothing voice it repeated; “I am everything! All there is; is me, there is nothing else, everything there ever was or will be is within me. There is nothing more, everything you are has always been here right now."
But again I asked "What about God?" and again there would be huge powerful pulse of blue light that would knock me head over heals and was actually painful, I could feel the light pass through me like some huge electrical charge. And again it would end with him repeating "I am everything! All there is; is me, there is nothing else, everything there ever was or will be is within me. There is nothing more, everything you are has always been here right now."
This went on several more times, but I was already bored with it, and had lost all interest in the blue light. Immediately it seemed to disappear into a tiny insignificant speck in the vast distance as I traveled away at time defeating speed. I felt myself crash through the layers of the upper atmosphere and at incredible speed land back on earth, finding myself slumped over sitting on my knees with the top of my head still on the ice.