Survival of a Lonely Man

All the color and warmth had been sucked out of his hands. They were almost as white as the snow around him. He had a straight stick and drilled it into a flat piece of wood until smoke lifted in the air. There was a line of twelve failed attempts to make an ember. The friction had burned a small black bowl in the wood. The edges cracked with veins of white and gray running through. At the bottom was a tiny orange star that was barely holding on to life. He almost fumbled the ember as he cupped his hands around it to protect it from the wind. Quickly, he gently blew on it to keep it alive. He acted as if the world rested on this single ember. Every breath was careful and calculated. Despite his best efforts, the ember was too weak.

“What attempt is that?” said a tall man who was dressed in a black suit. Hair was brushed back, and a grand smile permanently plastered itself on his face.

He was out of breath. “Please, I can’t, not now.” He looked at the dozen other attempts he had made to start a fire. The sun was getting low, and the wind grew in intensity. The spruce trees that surrounded him were heavy with snow. His belly cried out, and his blood thickened and froze.

“Give up, you will not start the fire. You are hungry and exhausted.”

“I have to.”

“To what? Live another day? You are trapped, no one has found you, they have assumed you dead, you have no purpose here.”

He had lost count of the days he had been there. The days had become so repetitive. Find food, make a fire, and sleep. They all blurred together into one experience. Counting the day he had been stranded in Dante’s hell would only add to his insanity.

“I have to keep hoping.”

“At this point, are there any other people? Ask yourself, if you were the only human left, would anything change? You would still be here trying to make a fire and slowly freezing to death.”

“I know, I… remember.” He did remember. It was a haze, a tree in a blizzard. Only a vague outline was seen, but a tree nonetheless.

“Do you? Can you even remember your name? Who are you?”

He hesitated, “I’m Aron.”

“Oh? I thought it was John last week and Hunter the week before that? And.”

He cut off the suited man, “I get it! So what, does it even matter?”

“Doesn’t that bother you?”

Everything he did was to crawl his way back to civilization. Every fire built, every animal killed, every cold, lonely night had been to get back. He would lie awake trying to picture his old life. He worked on a tall gray rock with lots of other people and did something with thin rectangular snow. He thinks he loved someone. They were as gentle as a snow bunny, with the majesty of the mountains in spring, more ferocious than timberwolves. Still, he felt his descriptions fell short. He knew that wasn’t right, but he couldn’t remember. It was like looking at the bottom of a frozen lake. The surface ice is a clear, cloudless sky, yet the deeper he peered, the more it became a dark, foggy mess.

He spun the stick faster and faster till little red drops fell on the wood below. He stopped and looked at his hands. A layer of callused flesh had been rubbed away. The fruiting red contrasted with his white hands. He cursed himself. He couldn’t even feel the pain.

In place of the suited man appeared a naked man, and he said, “You can’t even feel anymore, have you forgotten what it feels like?”

He wrapped his bloodied hands in moss and cloth, “It’s just so cold, my nerves are numb.”

“I am talking about love, the warmth of another being. All you have felt is pain and fear. From a twisted ankle to the edge of starvation. The sound of wolves tracking your scent. The only comfort you get is the fire you build and your own embrace.”

He struck the naked man a harsh look, “It sucks, I know that, but why remind me?”

“Are you real?”

The question seemed too easy. He saw, he walked, he felt when it wasn’t too cold. He looked at his bleeding hand. There was unmistakible blood. “Yes, I’m real.”

“I mean a real human, you’re living like an animal. If the only condition for being real is a beating heart, you’re lost. When was the last time you loved, even loved yourself? Have you mourned someone? Your tear ducts have dried up like a barren womb. It can’t produce the fruit of your humanity. The beast has no need to cry. They already know they are dead, and their existence is as impactful as a wiff of smoke. When will you realize that?”

He gripped his chest. He could feel more than the cold. A burn started in his heart and pushed through the rest of his body. It was not warm or heated him like a cup of coffee, but white-hot coals. He took his drill stick and launched himself at the naked man. He swung over and over again with his wolf-ish teeth bare and locked. His eye raged with the intensity of tree-tearing hail. After his assault, he fell to the ground. His breath shortened, and the pain in his chest started again. He tried, he wanted to cry to let the tears flow. Where they would hit the cloud soft layer of new snow and freeze on impact. He had a reason to cry. The reality was nobody was going to find him. There was no point in trying.

What if someone did find him? He couldn’t bring himself to fall into despair. He had only survived this far because he believed someone would find him.

The naked man and the suited man began to mock him again, “couldn’t cry, could you? You have a reason.”

He picked himself up and brushed off the snow, “I don’t have a reason, I’m not dead, I have not completely forgotten. I am not an animal. I keep trying without promise of success, don’t you think that’s enough?”

The two men got irritated at him, “Your hope is misplaced. You are the only man that has ever existed. You will never feel the loving embrace of another. Every day will be like labor pains for you. You will die alone and cold. The crops will be food for the birds and wild animals. You live like an animal, so you will die as one.”

He took his drilling stick and started again to make a fire. The wind picked up, and he drilled faster and faster. The wood started to smoke and blacken. The smoky smell lifted to his nose before getting swept away by the wind. When he lifted the stick, there was a bright, glowing ember.