Multi-column

Ice

Summary

summary::

Thoughts

Highlights

id878760573

The best way to understand slipstream is to think of it as a state of mind or a particular approach, one that is outside all categorization. It is, in essence, indefinable, but slipstream induces a sense of β€˜otherness’ in the audience, like a glimpse into a distorting mirror, perhaps, or a view of familiar sights and objects from an unfamiliar perspective. In general it imparts a sense that reality might not be quite as certain as we think. It is therefore possible to find elements of slipstream outside literature: in music, films, graphic novels, installation art and so on. Slipstream often deals with science, or the effects of science, but not in a mechanical or exact way. Thus it reflects the feelings of many people in the real world, who move in an increasingly science-dependent society without fully understanding how things work. (How many people can describe exactly how a cellphone works, for example? Yet mobile phones are transforming the way we live our ordinary lives.) πŸ”—

id878761333

Slipstream shifts science (and its effects) into the realm of the unconscious mind, into metaphor, into emotion, into symbols. Slipstream literature is a response to science (and scientific effects), an exercise of human feeling about science, if not an understanding of it. But it is not allegory. πŸ”—

id878861391

Suddenly my anxiety was so acute that I wanted to turn and drive back to town; but the road was too narrow, I was forced to follow its interminable windings up and down hill in the lifeless dark. The surface got worse, it got steeper and more slippery all the time. πŸ”—

id878870258

An unearthly whiteness began to bloom on the hedges. I passed a gap and glanced through. For a moment, my lights picked out like searchlights the girl’s naked body, slight as a child’s, ivory white against the dead white of the snow, her hair bright as spun glass. She did not look in my direction. Motionless, she kept her eyes fixed on the walls moving slowly towards her, a glassy, glittering circle of solid ice, of which she was the centre. Dazzling flashes came from the ice-cliffs far over her head; below, the outermost fringes of ice had already reached her, immobilized her, set hard as concrete over her feet and ankles. I watched the ice climb higher, covering knees and thighs, saw her mouth open, a black hole in the white face, heard her thin, agonized scream. I felt no pity for her. On the contrary, I derived an indescribable pleasure from seeing her suffer. I disapproved of my own callousness, but there it was. Various factors had combined to produce it, although they were not extenuating circumstances. πŸ”—

id878874081

Her hair was astonishing, silver-white, an albino’s, sparkling like moonlight, like moonlit venetian glass. I treated her like a glass girl; at times she hardly seemed real. πŸ”—

id878882611

Little time was left, but at least we would share the same end. Ice had already engulfed the forest, the last ranks of trees were splintering. Her silver hair touched my mouth, she was leaning against me. Then I lost her; my hands could not find her again. A snapped-off tree trunk was dancing high in the sky, hurled up hundreds of feet by the impact of the ice. There was a flash, everything was shaken. My suitcase was lying open, half-packed, on the bed. The windows of my room were still wide open, the curtains streamed into the room. Outside the treetops were streaming, the sky had gone dark. I saw no rain, but thunder still rolled and echoed, and as I looked out lightning flashed again. The temperature had fallen several degrees since morning. I hurried to put on my jacket and shut the window. πŸ”—

id878883117

The destruction outside was contagious and had infected everything, including their relationship, and the appearance of the room. πŸ”—

id878886284

Instead of the darkness, she faced a stupendous sky-conflagration, an incredible glacial dream-scene. Cold coruscations of rainbow fire pulsed overhead, shot through by shafts of pure incandescence thrown out by mountains of solid ice towering all around. Closer, the trees round the house, sheathed in ice, dripped and sparkled with weird prismatic jewels, reflecting the vivid changing cascades above. Instead of the familiar night sky, the aurora borealis formed a blazing, vibrating roof of intense cold and colour, beneath which the earth was trapped with all its inhabitants, walled in by those impassable glittering ice-cliffs. The world had become an arctic prison from which no escape was possible, all its creatures trapped as securely as were the trees, already lifeless inside their deadly resplendent armour.
Despairingly she looked all around. She was completely encircled by the tremendous ice walls, which were made fluid by explosions of blinding light, so that they moved and changed with a continuous liquid motion, advancing in torrents of ice, avalanches as big as oceans, flooding everywhere over the doomed world. Wherever she looked, she saw the same fearful encirclement, soaring battlements of ice, an overhanging ring of frigid, fiery, colossal waves about to collapse upon her. Frozen by the deathly cold emanating from the ice, dazzled by the blaze of crystalline ice-light, she felt herself becoming part of the polar vision, her structure becoming one with the structure of ice and snow. As her fate, she accepted the world of ice, shining, shimmering, dead; she resigned herself to the triumph of glaciers and the death of her world. πŸ”—

id878886684

When I considered that imperative need I felt for her, as for a missing part of myself, it appeared less like love than an inexplicable aberration, the sign of some character flaw I ought to eradicate, instead of letting it dominate me. πŸ”—

id879242965

Even here there was no sign of life, although presumably a train had just left. It was hard to believe the place was really in use; that anything really functioned. I was aware of an uncertainty of the real, in my surroundings and in myself. What I saw had no solidity, it was all made of mist and nylon, with nothing behind. πŸ”—

id879245156

He remarked that I had chosen a strange time for my visit. I asked why. β€˜The ice will be here very soon. The harbour will freeze, we shall be cut off.’ He flashed a blue glance at me. Something had not been said. He had a trick of blinking his very bright eyes, which then seemed to emit blue flames. He went on: β€˜You may be stranded here longer than you bargained for.’ Again the sharp look, as if something more were implied. πŸ”—

id879245340

FOUR πŸ”—

One could interpret his quest as a period of temporary abstinence from the "ice," but the arrogant ruler of the land knows that eventually the task at hand will get old and the "ice" (heroin) will make its inevitable return. The girl perhaps representing, among much else, a battered sense of hope, a way out, redemption, albeit flawed and beaten, or temptation, or perhaps the fragility of sobriety.

id879259179

ignis fatuus πŸ”—

id879259320

She saw the massed armies of forest trees encamped on all sides, the mountain wall above bristling with trees like guns. Below, the fjord was an impossible icy volcano erupting the baleful fire of the swallowed sun. πŸ”—

id879260218

Arrows flew in clouds. War clubs thumped. There was loud clashing of steel. Strangely dressed men came at the wall in waves, swarming up it, using their feet as well as their hands, holding cutlasses in their teeth. Agile as gorillas, they came in their thousands; however many were thrown back, a new wave always came on. Finally all the defenders of the wall were exterminated, the second line defences forced back. Invaders already inside opened the gates, and the rest burst in like a tidal wave. People barricaded themselves in their houses. In the town there was utter chaos. Hand-to-hand fighting in the narrow streets; savage meaningless cries like the cries of wild animals resounding between the walls. The strangers raced through the town like madmen, pouring wine down their throats, slaughtering all they met, every man, woman, child, animal. The wine streamed down their faces mingled with sweat and blood so that they looked like demons. A little snow fell: this seemed to excite them to frenzy, they laughed insanely, tried to catch the falling flakes in their mouths. πŸ”—

id879260232

I felt I had been defrauded: I alone should have done the breaking with tender love; I was the only person entitled to inflict wounds. πŸ”—

id879260601

β€˜We untie her as soon as we get her up there on the rock. She must struggle a bit, otherwise the dragon might think we’d palmed off a dead girl on him. The water foams down below. The monster’s great scaly coils appear. Then we hurl her down. The whole fjord becomes a maelstrom, blood and foam flying in all directions.’ πŸ”—

id879261546

Big tears fell from her eyes like icicles, like diamonds, but I was unmoved. They did not seem to me like real tears. She herself did not seem quite real. She was pale and almost transparent, the victim I used for my own enjoyment in dreams. πŸ”—

id879262036

It was snowing slightly, and the complex structure of each individual snowflake appeared in crystalline clearness, the delicate star-like, flower-like forms perfectly distinct and as bright as jewels. I looked round for the familiar ruins, but they were no longer there. πŸ”—

id879263223

The effect of the heavy snowfall was to deprive structures of solidity and precise location: my old impression revived of a scene made of nylon with nothing behind. πŸ”—

id879264230

In spite of an almost feverish anxiety over the girl, instead of attempting to find her I stood there doing nothing at all; became aware of an odd sort of fragmentation of my ideas. πŸ”—

id879264369

Leaning against one of these pillars a young girl stood a little apart, unclothed except by her shining hair. The death of hope had tranquilized her white face. She was scarcely more than a child, did not see us; her eyes were looking far inward at dreams. Arms like peeled wands, silvery streaming hair … a young moon among clouds … I wanted to stay and watch her. But they came to escort me to the presence. πŸ”—

id879265508

It was incomprehensible to her, this extraordinary flight that went on and on. The forest went on for ever. The silence went on and on. The snow stopped, but the cold went on and even increased, as if some icy exudation from the black trees congealed beneath them. Hour after hour passed before a little reluctant daylight filtered down through the roof of branches, revealing nothing but gloomy masses of firs, dead and living trees tangled together, a dead bird often caught in the branches, as if the tree had caught it deliberately. She shuddered, identifying herself, as a victim, with the dead bird. It was she who had been snared by nets of black branches. Armies of trees surrounded her on all sides, marching to infinity in all directions. Snow flew past the window again, waving white flags. She was the one who long ago had surrendered. She understood nothing of what was happening. The car leapt in the air, she was flung painfully on to her bruised shoulder, tried ineffectually to shield it with the other hand. πŸ”—

id879266023

SEVEN πŸ”—

id879493073

Something in her demanded victimization and terror, so she corrupted my dreams, led me into dark places I had no wish to explore. It was no longer clear to me which of us was the victim. Perhaps we were victims of one another. πŸ”—

id879624927

A tall, athletic, arrogant-looking man, with an almost paranoid air of assurance. His very bright and blue eyes flashed a danger signal, seemed not to see me. The girl was petrified, she did nothing at all. I did nothing either, simply stood watching. It was unlike me. But he was a man who had entered with a revolver for a specific purpose, and could not be prevented from carrying it out. I wondered if he would shoot us both, and if so which first, or if only one of us, which one. Such points were of interest to me.
It was clear that he regarded her as his property. I considered that she belonged to me. Between the two of us she was reduced to nothing; her only function might have been to link us together. His face wore the look of extreme arrogance which always repelled me. Yet I suddenly felt an indescribable affinity with him, a sort of blood-contact, generating confusion, so that I began to wonder if there were two of us … πŸ”—

id879635047

prevaricating πŸ”—

id879939899

In an indescribable way our looks tangled together. I seemed to be looking at my own reflection. Suddenly I was entangled in utmost confusion, not sure which of us was which. We were like halves of one being, joined in some mysterious symbiosis. I fought to retain my identity, but all my efforts failed to keep us apart. I continually found I was not myself, but him. At one moment I actually seemed to be wearing his clothes. I fled from the room in utter confusion: afterwards did not know what had happened, or if anything had. πŸ”—

id879942542

TEN πŸ”—

id880015073

The heart was not to be felt, and my hand came out sticky with blood. I wiped it on my handkerchief, then went for his coat, spread it over him, hiding the mess. I wanted to leave him some dignity. He was a stranger to whom I had never spoken; but he was my sort of man; we were not like that rabble. It was an outrage that they should have killed him. They must have cringed before him in his strength and power. This was how they treated him when they caught him alone, no longer young, and at a disadvantage. It was disgusting. I regretted not having inflicted more punishment on them. πŸ”—

id880017493

Voices screamed after us, but I ignored them; she was my one concern. The open channel had narrowed considerably, its edges frozen; soon it would be solid ice. Extraordinary loud, long cracks, like shots, like thunderclaps, came from the thickening ice of the harbour. My face felt raw, my hands were blue and burning with cold, but I kept on rowing towards the ship, through the churning white of the blizzard, through flying spray, booming ice, shrieks, crashes, blood. A small boat foundered beside us, the water seethed with frantically lashing limbs. Desperate drowning fingers clawed at the gunwale; I beat them off. A pair of lovers floated past, locked together by frozen arms, rocking and rolling deliriously in the waves. Suddenly the boat gave a violent lurch; I swung round, pulling out my revolver. I knew what had happened. Behind my back a man had climbed over the side. I fired, thrust him into the water again, watched it turn red. The ship’s side loomed steep as a cliff above us, the companion-ladder only reached to my shoulder. Somehow or other, by a colossal effort, I managed to hoist the girl on to the wooden steps, climbed up after her, pushed her up to the deck. We were allowed to stay. No one else came aboard. The ship started moving immediately. It was a triumph. πŸ”—

id880017769

A desperately sick man lay on the floor under a thin blanket. Great tufts of his hair had fallen out, strips of skin hung from his hands and face, his loose teeth rattled in black bleeding gums every time he coughed, he never stopped coughing and groaning and spitting blood. Emaciated cats wandered in and out, licked the blood with delicate pointed pink tongues. πŸ”—

id880017840

The girl was exhausted, worn out by travel: she did not want to go on. She kept saying that she must rest, begged me to leave her and continue the voyage alone. β€˜Don’t drag me any further!’ Her voice was fretful. β€˜You only do it to torture me.’ I replied that I was trying to save her. Anger showed in her eyes. β€˜That’s what you say. I was fool enough to believe you the first time.’ In spite of all attempts to please her, she persisted in treating me as a treacherous enemy. πŸ”—

id880018915

I could not remain isolated from the rest of the world. I was involved with the fate of the planet, I had to take an active part in whatever was going on. The endless celebrations here seemed both boring and sinister, reminiscent of the orgies of the plague years. Now, as then, people were deluding themselves; they induced a false sense of security by means of self-indulgence and wishful thinking. I did not believe for one moment they had really escaped. πŸ”—

id880019535

The full skirt swirling, a silky shimmer like moonlight on violets; the bright, heavy hair swinging, scintillating with violet highlights. I followed, touched her hair with the tips of my fingers, felt it ripple with life. Her arms had a soft satin sheen, the skin smooth and scented, a chain of violets round the thin wrist. I put my arms round her and kissed her neck. Instantly her whole body tensed in violent resistance, she twisted herself away. β€˜Don’t touch me! I don’t know how you have the nerve …’ Her voice seemed to fail on the edge of tears, then rose again thinly: β€˜Well, what are you waiting for? Why don’t you go? And don’t come back this time. I never want to see you again, or be reminded of you!’ She pulled off her watch and a ring I had given her, flung them wildly in my direction; began trying to unfasten her necklace, hands at the back of her head, the raised arms giving her slight body a hint of voluptuousness it did not really possess. With an effort I refrained from embracing her again, pleaded with her instead. β€˜Don’t be so angry. Don’t let’s part like this. You must know how I’ve felt about you all this time. You know how I’ve always followed you, forced you to come with me. But you’ve said so consistently that you hated me, wanted nothing to do with me, that I’ve finally had to believe you.’ I was only being half honest, and knew it. Tentatively I took her hand; it was stiff, unresponsive, but she did not take it away, let me go on holding it while she gazed at me fixedly. With doubt, criticism, accusation her eyes rested … serious, innocent, shadowed eyes; the hand behind her head still engaged with the necklace; the glittering hair, the scent of violets, close to my hand; then the grave voice … β€˜And if I hadn’t said those things, would you have stayed with me?’
This time it seemed important to speak the whole truth: but I could not be certain what that was, and in the end the only true words seemed to be: β€˜I don’t know.’ πŸ”—

id880020166

I saw that her shadowed face looked bruised by emotion, before the bright hair swung forward, concealing it. There was a brief pause, long enough for me to feel a chilly sensation creep over me; the adumbration of emptiness, loss … of what life would be like without her. πŸ”—

id880020520

I looked at the natural world, and it seemed to share my feelings, to be trying in vain to escape its approaching doom. The waves of the sea sped in disorderly flight towards the horizon; the sea birds, the dolphins and flying fish, hurtled frenziedly through the air; the islands trembled and grew transparent, endeavouring to detach themselves, to rise as vapour and vanish in space. But no escape was possible. The defenceless earth could only lie waiting for its destruction, either by avalanches of ice, or by chain-explosions which would go on and on, eventually transforming it into a nebula, its very substance disintegrated. πŸ”—

id880020688

He told me about the hallucination of space-time, and the joining of past and future so that either could be the present, and all ages accessible. He said he would take me to his world, if I wanted to go. He and others like him had seen the end of our planet, the end of the human race. The race was dying, the collective death-wish, the fatal impulse to self-destruction, although perhaps human life might survive. The life here was over. But life was continuing and expanding in a different place. We could be incorporated in this wider life, if we chose.
I tried to understand. He was a man, but seemed more; he was not what I was. He had access to superior knowledge, to some ultimate truth. He was offering me the freedom of his privileged world, a world my inmost self longed to know. I felt the excitement of the unimaginable experience. From the doomed dying world man had ruined, I seemed to catch sight of this other one, new, infinitely alive, and of boundless potential. For a second I believed myself capable of existing on a higher level in that wonderful world; but saw how far it was beyond my powers when I thought of the girl, the warden, the spreading ice, the fighting and killing. I was part of all that, irrevocably involved with events and persons upon this planet. It was heartbreaking to reject what a part of me wanted most. But I knew that my place was here, in our world under sentence of death, and that I would have to stay and see it through to the end. πŸ”—

id880020754

It did not seem to matter what I did now. I was committed to violence and must keep to my pattern. πŸ”—

id880020832

By making war we asserted the fact that we were alive and opposed the icy death creeping over the globe. πŸ”—

id880021798

β€˜You can’t expect luxury if you insist on being a hero.’ πŸ”—

id880022014

We left our seats quietly, went through a door, faced an uncovered window. I was confused about time. It had been night overhead all along, but below it was still daylight. There were no clouds. I saw islands scattered over the sea, a normal aerial view. Then something extraordinary, out of this world: a wall of rainbow ice jutting up from the sea, cutting right across, pushing a ridge of water ahead of it as it moved, as if the flat pale surface of sea was a carpet being rolled up. It was a sinister, fascinating sight, which did not seem intended for human eyes. I stared down at it, seeing other things at the same time. The ice world spreading over our world. Mountainous walls of ice surrounding the girl. Her moon-white skin, her hair sparkling with diamond prisms under the moon. The moon’s dead eye watching the death of our world. πŸ”—

id880022490

On the far side of the river a troop of small gazelle-like creatures had come to drink, lifting and lowering graceful horned heads. The guards stood at a distance. Alone with my companion, I felt closer to him than ever before; we were like brothers, like identical twin brothers. Drawn to him more strongly than I had ever been, I had to give my feelings some expression, told him how much I appreciated his kindness, how greatly I was honoured to be his friend. Something was wrong. He did not smile or acknowledge the compliment, but abruptly stood up. I got up too, while across the water the animals fled, alarmed by our movements. The atmosphere was changing round me; suddenly there was a chill, as if the warm air had passed over ice. I felt a sudden uncomprehended terror, like the sensation that comes in nightmares just before one begins to fall.
In a moment he had turned on me, his eyes flashing blue danger, his face a grim mask. β€˜Where is she?’ His voice was fierce, curt, icy. It was as if he had whipped out a gun and pointed it at me. I was horrified; confused by the sudden switch from one emotion to another totally different, I could only stammer stupidly: β€˜I suppose where I left her …’ He gave me a look of ice. β€˜You mean you don’t know?’ His accusatory tone froze. I was too appalled to reply. πŸ”—

id880022728

β€˜So you’ve abandoned her.’ Arrows of blue ice piercing a blizzard, his eyes narrowed and struck. β€˜I hardly expected that, even of you.’ πŸ”—

id880024293

Lit by the dazzling cold fire of the aurora borealis, they walked among glittering icebergs; a blizzard blew arctic white, his bone-white forehead and icicle eyes, her silver-frosted hair bright with ice flowers under the pole star. A thunderclap boomed in the ice. He fought a polar bear, strangled it with his hands, to train her in toughness taught her to take the skin with his wicked knife. When it was done, she crept close for warmth. The huge skin covered them both, its long white hairs tipped with blood. The snowy thickness hid their two bodies; blood dripping from the tips of the dense fur turned the snow blood-red. πŸ”—

id880025761

I saw her standing in torchlight with dreaming eyes. I watched her, wanted her, wanted to take her away with me. But that other had claimed her; her white girl’s body fell through the smoke of smouldering torches across his knees. I was out searching for her, marauders were sacking the town. I searched everywhere, could not find her, stumbled over her in the rubble, her head awry. Through the smoke and dust filling the air, I saw her skin white against dirt and debris, the blood first red and then black on the white, her head twisted sideways by the unbelievable hair, the slender neck broken. Victimization in childhood had made her accept the fate of a victim, and whatever I did or did not do this fate would ultimately achieve itself. To leave her to it was one thing. To leave her to that man was quite a different thing. It was something I could not do. πŸ”—

id880027837

I thought of her at the centre, not knowing she was encircled, while we advanced towards her from different sides, I from one point, he from another, and then the ice … My chances of arriving first seemed almost non-existent. πŸ”—

id880027995

I was always aware that I was going to execution. Not that my own death seemed to matter. I had lived, I had done things, I had seen the world. I did not want to grow old, deteriorate, lose my intelligence and my physical faculties. But I had this compulsive urge to see the girl once more; to be the first to reach her. πŸ”—

id880028255

desultory πŸ”—

id880028620

Suddenly I was on the last lap of the journey. In spite of difficulties which had seemed insurmountable, my objective was almost in sight. I was pleased with my achievement, and with myself. I did not think about the killing involved. If I had acted differently I should never have got here. In any case, the hour of death had only been anticipated slightly, every living creature would soon perish. The whole world was turning towards death. Already the ice had buried millions; the survivors distracted themselves with fighting and rushing about, but always knew the invincible enemy was advancing, and that wherever they went, the ice would be there, the conqueror, in the end. The only thing was to extract what satisfaction one could from each moment. I enjoyed rushing through the night in the high-powered car, exhilarated by the speed and my own skilful driving, by the feeling of excitement and danger. When I got tired I pulled up at the roadside, slept for an hour or so. πŸ”—

id880028873

I was oppressed by the sense of universal strangeness, by the chill of approaching catastrophe, the menace of ruins suspended above; and also by the enormity of what had been done, the weight of collective guilt. A frightful crime had been committed, against nature, against the universe, against life. By rejecting life, man had destroyed the immemorial order, destroyed the world; now everything was about to crash down in ruins. πŸ”—

id880029191

I saw what was in front of my eyes, and at the same time I saw the girl. Her picture was always with me, in my wallet and in my head. Now her image appeared in the open wherever I looked. Her white lost face was everywhere with its too-large eyes, her albino paleness flared like a torch beneath the malignant clouds, drew my eyes like a magnet. She was a shimmer among the ruins, her hair a glittering in the dark day. Her wide eyes of a wronged and terrified child accused me from the black holes of smashed windows. Like a perverted child she ran past, soliciting me with big eyes, tempting me with the pleasure of watching her pain, elaborating the worst imaginings of my desire. The ghostly gleam of her face lured me into the shadows, her hair was a cloud of light; but as I came near her she turned and fled, the silver shifting suddenly on her shoulders, a waterfall glinting in moonlight. πŸ”—

id880030305

moribund πŸ”—

id880030312

inured πŸ”—

id880030555

I was too late, I saw at once that we had no chance. A mirage-like arctic splendour towered all around, a weird, unearthly architecture of ice. Huge ice-battlements, rainbow turrets and pinnacles, filled the sky, lit from within by frigid mineral fires. We were trapped by those encircling walls, a ring of ghostly executioners, advancing slowly, inexorably, to destroy us. I could not move, could not think. The executioner’s breath paralysed, dulled the brain. I felt the fatal chill of the ice touch me, heard its thunder, saw it split by dazzling emerald fissures. Far overhead the iceberg-glittering heights boomed and shuddered, about to fall. Frost glimmered on her shoulders, her face was ice-white, the long eyelashes swept her cheek. I held her close, clasped her tightly against my chest, so that she should not see the mountainous masses of falling ice. πŸ”—

id880031415

She was trying to become invisible in the snow. Sudden terror had seized her: the thought of the man whose ice-blue eyes had a magnetic power which could deprive her of will and thrust her down into hallucination and horror. The fear she lived with, always near her, close behind the world’s normal faΓ§ade, had become concentrated on him. And there was another connected with him, they were in league together, or perhaps they were the same person.
Both of them persecuted her, she did not understand why. But she accepted the fact as she accepted all the things that happened to her, expecting to be ill-treated, to be made a victim, ultimately to be destroyed, either by unknown forces or by human beings. This fate seemed always to have been waiting for her, ever since time began. Only love might have saved her from it. But she had never looked for love. Her part was to suffer; that was known and accepted. Fatality brought resignation. It was no use fighting against her fate. She knew she had been beaten before the start. πŸ”—

id880032622

I seemed to feel the same feverish disorder in myself, in all my pointless rushing from place to place. The crazily dancing snowflakes represented the whole of life. Her image flew past, the silver hair streaming, and was instantly swept away in the wild confusion. In the delirium of the dance, it was impossible to distinguish between the violent and the victims. Anyway, distinctions no longer mattered in a dance of death, where all the dancers spun on the edge of nothing. πŸ”—

id880032706

The past had vanished and become nothing; the future was the inconceivable nothingness of annihilation. All that was left was the ceaselessly shrinking fragment of time called β€˜now’. πŸ”—

id880034556

β€˜I knew …’ I had to bend over her to catch the accusing voice, speaking through tears. β€˜Whenever I see you, I always know you’ll torment me … kick me around … treat me like some sort of slave … if not at once, in an hour or two, or next day … you’re sure to … you always do …’ I was startled, almost shocked. The words presented a view of myself I much preferred not to see. I hurriedly asked her another question. β€˜Who were you waiting for on the verandah, if it wasn’t the hotel fellow?’ Once more a totally unexpected answer disconcerted me. β€˜For you … I heard the car … I thought … I wondered …’ This time I was astounded, incredulous. β€˜But that can’t possibly be true – not after what you’ve just said. Besides, you didn’t know I was coming. I don’t believe it.’ πŸ”—

id880034941

She said she was ready, and went to the door; stopped there, looking back at the room. I saw her psychologically bruised face, her extreme vulnerability, her unspoken fears. This little room the one friendly familiar place. Everything outside terrifyingly strange. The huge alien night, the snow, the destroying cold, the menacing unknown future. Her eyes turned to me, searched my face: a heavy, doubting, reproachful look, accusing and questioning at the same time. I was another very disturbing factor; she had absolutely no reason to trust me. I smiled at her, touched her hand. Her lips moved slightly in what, in different circumstances, might have become a smile. πŸ”—

id880035141

I wondered why I had waited so long to be kind to her, until it was almost too late. πŸ”—

id880035195

Driving the big car through the glacial night I was almost happy. I did not regret that other world I had longed for and lost. My world was now ending in snow and ice, there was nothing else left. Human life was over, the astronauts underground, buried by tons of ice, the scientists wiped out by their own disaster. I felt exhilarated because we two were alive, racing through the blizzard together. πŸ”—

id880035394

The world seemed to have come to an end already. It did not matter. The car had become our world; a small, bright, heated room; our home in the vast, indifferent, freezing universe. To preserve the warmth generated by our bodies we kept close to each other. She no longer seemed tense or suspicious, leaning against my shoulder.
A terrible cold world of ice and death had replaced the living world we had always known. Outside there was only the deadly cold, the frozen vacuum of an ice age, life reduced to mineral crystals; but here, in our lighted room, we were safe and warm. I looked into her face, it was smiling, untroubled; I could see no fear, no sadness there now. She smiled and pressed close, content with me in our home.
I drove at great speed, as if escaping, pretending we could escape. Although I knew there was no escape from the ice, from the ever-diminishing remnant of time that encapsuled us. I made the most of the minutes. The miles and the minutes flew past. The weight of the gun in my pocket was reassuring. πŸ”—