The End Maybe? by Elizabeth Obadina

The day was cold and getting dark. Inside the thickness of my thermal and waterproof mitts the tips of my fingers were numbing as my damp, sweat-drenched gloves began to freeze. I watched as distant grey cloud began curling down the slopes, muffling all noise, swallowing the last shards of daylight; enshrouding the harsh neon floodlight meant to counter the arctic night. I felt very alone. Very conscious of the fact that once the cloud rolled over me, I would have no idea which way to go. I would be lost and all too likely I would die.

I was quite comfortable lying in the hollow I had tumbled into. I wasn’t cold yet as it had taken me considerable effort and exertion to even get this far. My blood was still pumping around my body, I could hear it in my head, feel it in my chest and my breath was warm, condensing on the scarf covering my mouth and nose to form frost crystals. I had lost my goggles in the fall and my eyelids felt heavy, weighed down by icy eyelashes.

I looked straight up the North Star sparkling above me, the only other constellation I could identify was the Plough. There were so many more and they were so beautiful, but I couldn’t identify them, I had never troubled enough to learn.  A full moon, shimmered through cirrus cloud as it began rising over the distant eastern mountains and for a moment I lay lost in the wonder of the universe, reluctant to move. It was overwhelmingly lovely.

My body shivered as cold seeped into my clothes, and I shuddered out of my star gazing reverie. Behind me clouds had silently slipped over all the landmarks I knew. All that remained were diffuse pools of orange haze which were rapidly disappearing into the thick cloud blanket. I needed to move, and fast. I had two options get up, keep going and show them all that I could manage arctic life or fall asleep in my cosy glacial crater only to be disturbed three millennia later, like Otzi the Ice Man.

“‘Lizzie’ the Ice Lady - no Ice Woman - no Ice Maiden. Yes, ‘Lizzie the Ice Maiden’, that’s what I’ll be,” I thought as my hypothermic mind wandered.

I fumbled for my ID. My discoverers would have to know my name, but would they be able to read in three thousand years’ time? That’s a thought.

My gloved hand discovered my zipped trouser pocket and the hard oblong shape of my mobile phone which brought me back to the present from my meandering thoughts of fame as ‘Lizzie the Ice Maiden’ in three thousand years’ time. Today I wasn’t going to give up that easily.

I hauled myself over on to all fours. I had been lying on my goggles so I shook the snow out of them and put them on – now I could see a bit better. The cloud was a lot closer than I had thought. I needed to get moving. Scattered around me were the poles and skis I needed to escape the gloom bearing down on me. I tried to stand up and sank knee high in the snow. I crawled several metres beyond my frozen cradle dragging my skis behind me. The snow was firmer here. I managed to roll on to one side and reattach one ski to my left boot. Gingerly I positioned my left leg diagonally across the slope so that I could reattach my right ski to my right boot. Success, although I was now lying on my right side in the snow with unnaturally long appendages imprisoning both feet. I tried moving my legs and the skis crossed at the back. I tried again and both skis clattered together in front of me. I tried again, and again and then realised that I had inadvertently dug a groove for the skis, a little shelf in fact which I could push myself upright on with the help of my ski poles.

Hoorah. I was upright!

My joy was short lived as I realised I had positioned my skis a little too diagonally uphill and I was now sliding backwards, downhill faster than I wanted to.

I couldn’t stop and every fibre of my body was concentrating on keeping the skis parallel so that I wouldn’t tumble into a messy heap – yet again.

I tried a little hop to one side to slow down to a stop and found myself flailing my right-hand ski pole as I tried to regain my balance. Success again. I was still going downhill backwards but at a gentler speed on a gentler gradient.

Maybe that was the answer. Lots of little hops to turn around? But would I be able to cope when faced with a steep downhill run or would I be able to start going forward at a gentler speed but in the opposite direction, the direction away from where I wanted to go?

These thoughts troubled me as I slid backwards. I began to hear voices in my head. Laughter. Clapping. Cheering. Hypothermic delirium was really settling in. The sky grew darker, the moon and the stars disappeared as the descending cloud wrapped itself around me. I shut my eyes. I was doomed. I would become ‘Lizzie the Ice Maiden’ - if I was ever found.

Suddenly I felt myself wrapped in strong arms.

My grandchildren.

“Granny! Granny! Why are you skiing backwards with your bum stuck in the air?”

“Granny! What were you doing in the toddlers’ snowboarding park?”

And my daughter,

“MUM! Honestly, we’ve been waiting ages for you to come in. I was going to send someone to help you get back but your grandchildren said no. They said Granny could do ‘it’. Although what that ‘it’ was defies description. Now come inside and get some hot chocolate and you can decide whether you want to try skiing again tomorrow.”