YOU SURPRISE ME

by Kipler@aol.com

Your face is calm as I meet your gaze - happy, maybe. Your body is heavy on mine. You lay your head down, and I watch you close your eyes, watch your face relax as you slip away. You surprise me.

I feel your body begin to shudder, and I realize that you are cold, too. I pull myself out from under your weight and balance you across my lap. I wrap you as closely as I can, rock you slightly, as if this will give you warmth, as if I have any warmth to give you. Your face is so cold. I press myself against you.

I look up for the first time. It is snow everywhere, and the wind blows hard across my wet face, and I know why I have been so cold. This place is rock and snow and I see nothing to break the sameness of it.

But you came here with some rescue in mind. I am confident of that.  I am only waiting to see what the rescue is.

Your body shudders hard and I try to wrap you more tightly.

I look down at your face. Your hair is white at the tips, and I can't understand - can hair go white like this, so soon? - and the white creeps further, toward your scalp. I press my lips against your eyes, and feel the ice on your lashes. I move my hand to your hair and feel it even through my numb fingers - the tiny casing of crystal that covers each strand. I feel my own hair. It is the same. Hard shells of frozen water.

I am waiting for some rescue, I know. Airplanes will come, or helicopters. Warm blankets.

I see strange shadows in my vision. Ice on my own lashes. I am afraid that my eyes will freeze shut. Can that happen? I don't know, I don't know. I pull the hood of the parka around my face and let the fringe cover your face as well. I breathe on you and wonder if that will warm you, melt the ice, or if my breath will ice over, too. I remember pictures, and "The Call of the Wild," men with ice-coats on their moustaches and beards, where their breathing has condensed and frozen.

Our bodies are wracked with motion. I can't tell which are your shudders and which are mine. I pull my face back to see you again. Your features are so still, even though you shiver. A tiny fringe of white coats your eyes. I run my hand down the side of your face, as if I can wipe the cold away. I can't feel you. My fingers are numb.

The cold is strange and strong, and it is all there is. It is like real hunger, real pain. The only thing that matters.

I can't feel time. I pull your arm close to me, fumble with my numb fingers to check for a watch. The sleeves of your sweater are frozen against your wrists; it is hard to pull them back. You have a watch, on your right wrist, but when I pull it close to my face I see that it is smashed. I try to squeeze your hand but my own is so weak and careless with cold.

Your shaking is not so violent now, and I know that I have warmed you. I am waiting for this, too, but maybe my body is weaker. The helicopters will come, and they will warm me.

I am moving slowly. I wonder if I will know the sound of the helicopters when they come. I wonder if they will see us. We are black and the snow is white. They will see us.

But the snow looks blue, now, to me. Blue and speckled, and if I look at it I confuse my eyes. I close them and press my face against yours.

The cold is everything. It is around me and inside me.

I think time is passing, but I can't feel it. I open my eyes and don't know how long they have been closed.

We are still here. I am still holding you.

Your body has stopped shuddering.

I think that if I hold you closely, some of your warmth will help me; I am still shaking so hard. I press my face down against yours, and when I try to lift my head I find that it is too heavy, and I am too tired.

I feel my body quake, but it is something outside me. It is no more a part of me than your body is.

I think that time is passing, but I can't feel it.

There is a sound.

Something I was waiting for; I can't remember what it is.

There is still the first sound, and now other ones. Voices.

I can feel my body moving. I am not moving it, or maybe I am.

You are moving, too.

There is warmth. I remember it, when it hits my skin. There are voices speaking to me.

 I try again to lift my head. It is not too heavy, now. I lift my head and force the eyelids open, and it is dark here, not bright and blue like the snow but warm and shadowed. There is one light only, and it tracks across my vision, left then right.

I move my fingertips. They feel something underneath me, soft and not cold. When the one light hits, I can see that it is a blanket. There is a blanket underneath me and one covering me. I am naked except for the blankets, but dry.

I close my eyes and forget the blanket. I am back on the snow. I open my eyes, and the blanket is back. I am helpless as I lie there, opening and closing my eyes, trying to remember the blanket.

Then my eyelids feel heavy and I let them close, and there is no sound and no light and time passes.

The voices trail over me, louder and more urgent suddenly, and I open my eyes again.
I have forgotten the blanket, but it is here, still, and there are men hovering over me.

I have forgotten you.

My tongue is thick and hard to maneuver.

"Mulder," I say, and the men look at me. I have surprised them.

The voices speak quickly to each other, but they do not speak to me.

The light is dim, but if I do not close my eyes I can adjust to the shadows. I hold my eyelids open for a moment, then a longer moment, and soon I can see.

"Mulder," I say again, and this time the men look at each other and not at me, and they do not speak.

I can see this place, now, and feel the jostling. It is an airplane. No, there is the sound of a rotor. It is a helicopter. I am on the floor of a helicopter, lying on a blanket. Next to my head is a wet parka, a pair of boots.

I look around. Someone is speaking to me. I see you.

I am wrapped in a pile of blankets.

You are not.

I move to sit up. My voice does not work. My thoughts will not come to my mouth.

"Mulder," is all I can say.

The voices are talking to me, again. They are saying my name. First they are gentle, but I tug at the hands that hold me down and I kick at the blanket. Now they shout at me, tell me to hold still.

You are not moving. No one is speaking to you. There is no blanket on you, no pile of wet clothes near you.

"Help him," I say, when my voice comes to me at last.

Then there is a pair of arms on my shoulders, and I look up to see the face. It is a young man, but he is very strong. I cannot move with him kneeling there, cannot go to you.

He is saying the same thing, over and over. I listen, finally, since he will not let me go.

"Ma'am! Agent Scully!"

He is shouting. I watch his face. His eyes hold my gaze and he shakes his head very slowly.

I look at your wet hair.

Your hands do not move. Your face does not move.

My voice goes again, and no sound comes.

End

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