Echo in the night

 

The lone figure was barely visible in the flurry of snow which swirled around him; he’d never been so far up from the valley and knowing he’d taken a wrong turning back at the river didn’t help him now. He’d tried to turn back and go down again but found it impossible with the wind tearing it him so fiercely from that direction. It became more difficult to breathe now and as he sucked the icy air into his chest, sharp pains made him cry out as his heart started thumping wildly again. He rested, but not for long, being roused by the thought that this was happening more often. He stumbled on, eyes stinging with tears frozen on his eyelids, his body chilled to the bone with the bitter cold. He was forced to stop again, put his head down and drag what air he could into his tortured lungs, forcing a sudden bubbling scream of agony to burst from his throat, ending as a dull blackness overtook him and he crumpled forward onto the snow and lay still.

It was warmer there; he felt it spreading slowly through his body, relaxing him; at the same time, somewhere in the vestibule of his mind the awareness came to him, all he had to do was to keep his eyes closed, let himself go and he could escape the harsh blue whiteness of that deadening cold; Yet somehow the will to live stirred him into a kind of consciousness where only the faltering thump inside his chest still connected him to the land of the living.

Then, from somewhere far away he heard the voice of his boy; heard him laughing that day by the river; felt his small body pressing close to his as he lay on his chest listening to his father’s life-force, then so strong…now fluttering faintly on the verge of extinction. Urged on by the hope that his son was close by, he struggled to raise his head to look for him and in the process gave the spark within him a gentle blow so that it spluttered on a little brighter. Realization was crushing as he struggled to his feet and peered around, for he saw no one; only the snow, pure and pristine white, dancing around, mocking him as it heard him gasping for the howling wind to stop.

It was more than the ferocity of the elements and the ache in his heart that weighed him down, forcing him to his knees again. For as long as he could remember, as he hunted for food to feed himself and his family, he’d lived with danger; he had been afraid many times but the fear he felt now was different; more final. Since leaving his woman and his boy a strong sense of foreboding had been his shadow and though he’d wanted to, he hadn’t dared to look back. She’d clung so hard; beating at his head and chest, tears streaming down her face as never before, sobbing and pleading as she’d held on to him; some instinct telling her this time what she’d always dreaded…that he may not come back…

As night fell he could do no more, so he closed his eyes. Strangely, wonderfully he felt her warmth, pulling him close, wrapping itself around him. He could smell her hair; feel the warmth of her face and her body; felt again the gentleness of spirit she’d brought to him, transforming him from stranger to lover and on to the father of their child. She’d meant so much to him and it was probably at this point when his lips murmured her name and his mind held only thoughts of her that his body was at last taken by the elements.

The news that he had returned was like an echo in the night, for over 4,000 years later, high in the mountains between Austria and Italy where he’d died, his body was found by climbers and the Ice Man hunter’s story could at last be told.

Dennis Crompton © 1997

(Ötzi is a mummified human discovered in 1991 in the Schnalstal glacier in the Alps, on the border between Austria and Italy. He died around 3300 BC. More information here: www.newscientist.com and here: www.news.nationalgeographic.com).

 (first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)