A WINTER NIGHT'S JOURNEY

I pressed on, and another eternity of loneliness, resistance and biting cold had begun.  I began walking, slipping, climbing and then merely crawling.  The way was steep, and the gravel spilt out from under me as I passed, shattering the perfect silence, telling the whole world of my wretched attempt.  Once I sank to my knees, it was in that posture that I was able to continue.  I crawled?  Yes, I crawled in a most humiliating fashion!  There was nothing graceful about the beggarly and desperate way I scaled that Peak.  Every inch I clawed and groveled until it seemed that I had spent all my energies.  I was convinced I could go no further.  I was helpless and could not move.  Above me I could see that I still had most of the journey to go.  Below me... augh!  I had barely begun!  For the tiniest moment I thought that I might as well die right there....

Yes, die now thought I.  It would all be over, and then I could rest.  I could drift sweetly into the blackness of nonexistence.  What did I want to mount this bloody Peak so bad for anyway!?  What could possibly be up there that is worth all this pain?  Surrender and quit!  Other people don’t bother with such things as this and they are happy!  Why do you bother so much?  You’re just making yourself miserable.  Just go to sleep and worry about the whole messy business no more!

This suggestion, this lie spawned from the heart of hell itself, had lulled me and tempted me sorely.  I might add that it probably would have succeeded in turning me back around the way that I had come, except for what happened next.

Far below, in the darkness, I heard a sound.  A noise, first once, then again.  It repeated down there and multiplied among the rocks and the shadows.  It was the scraping of claws.  It was the panting of things eager to follow, more hungry and thirsty than I was.  And what for?! I prayed to know, but I already knew.  A mortal fear seized my entire being.  If I did not somehow climb this Snowy Peak, the things that I could hear approaching from below would have me for their own.  I knew they had no cares for my well-being, but desired to devour me, and what little divinity I bore within.  Urgently, I set about to recommence my labors.

But I could not.  My body was stiffened and nearly frozen.  I could not at all move, and sheer terror overtook me.  I could do no more, and yet I could hear them coming for me!  I opened my throat to emit a scream for help, as I often do in dreams, and as what often happens in my dreams, not a sound emerged.  Over and over I tried, but it seemed that somehow even my voice had become frozen.  At last I reached down as deeply within myself as I possibly could.  I mustered everything I had, with every fiber of energy I could grasp.  Suddenly there burst from my inner soul a piercing cry for help so sharp and clear, so powerful that the greatest belfry of the largest church on earth could not have equaled it. Then my soul, like a snuffed out candle, recoiled as my whole body heaved and convulsed in tears and racking sobs of emotional release.

I was finished.  There was nothing else for me to do.  In the clear air, in the stinging cold, I lay.  I waited for help.  It seemed that it would never come, or perhaps time had stopped.  For a time, nothing happened.  I couldn’t hear a thing, good or evil.  There was nothing in the air but a dead silence, and I could not even bear to lift my head.  I felt very much dead.  I lay there with no promise of anything else but what I felt around me for all time.