Ice and white surrounded Martin’s eyes as he made his way up the glacier, picking at ridges, inching his way along the journey, slipping here and there, standing to look at the valley.
“Is anyone out there?” Martin said, hearing his voice echo across the frozen lake at the bottom of the mountain. “Can anyone hear me?”
Nothing answered except the boomerang of his own voice, coming back to him hollow and tinny, isolated and alone. He renewed his climb up the mountain. A sharp wind hit him on the back and he felt the stab of cold up his legs and onto his neck – what was he wearing here that allowed this kind of cold to penetrate into his bones?
And just as he reached the top, he looked forward at the frozen ocean beyond, blue sky with orange sunrise – or was it sunset? And then the snow beneath him began to settle. He could feel himself descending, reached out for a ridge, but none was there, beginning to fall, seeing the frozen, jagged edges below him –
Martin woke up in a sweat. It’d seemed so real to him, really, just like being there – and yet he woke up hot, not cold.
“Darling,” he said aloud, “you’re not going to believe the –“
And then he remembered. Savannah had moved out three nights ago.
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