Better Watch Out

It snowed all week on the trek to the North Pole. Since the Medved, a Russian icebreaker, could go no further North, I had been scraping onwards on foot with little more than a compass to guide me. The wilderness was more vast than I could have imagined and, in the permanent darkness of winter and the hazy snow, the horizon felt ever more distant than it had in the weeks spent gazing at the endless sea, aching for solid ground. It was the longest week I ever survived, and the icy landscape had carved me hollow. Much of my rations were lost to the howling wind and I teetered on the cliff of starvation; stomach, limbs, head, all aching, everything was aching with hunger and the labour of dragging my body steadily onwards.

I’d almost forgotten why I’d come all this way, only that I had to keep going, just keep heading North, I had to get there, as if it were just out of survival and not sixteen years of dreaming and working and praying to have this chance. My mum had tried to convince me to do A Levels, but I put in an application anyway, without her knowing. Granny helped me post it. Still, months later I received a letter back, saying ‘Oh yes, we’re very impressed. We loved your cover letter. Come on, we’ll have you.’ Mum stopped trying to discourage me after that. Still, when I saw, from a great distance across the frozen plains and through flurrying snow, the golden light of the North Pole, I collapsed to my knees. For a dreadful heartbeat I realised I was probably hallucinating from sleep loss and malnourishment, until I discovered that it didn’t matter. I didn’t care. As long as I could bask in that golden light before the blizzard swept me to a lonely grave, I didn’t care if it was just a figment of my waking dreams. I had to make it.

Still on my knees, I scrambled forwards and lurched upright, careening towards the North Pole. It was further than I thought, each step seemed to only increase the distance and by the time I reached it I was entirely drained. Yet I had reached it. There was nothing there except the Pole itself, lonely and beautiful and close enough to touch. Red and white stripes spiralled several metres upwards to a yellowish bulb, casting a warm glow over the barren landscape. The wind wailed around me, but I felt none of it this close to the pole itself, as if it were the eye of every arctic storm. I took off my glove and reached trembling fingers towards it. Just outside of its halo of light, something large moved amidst the dark snow. My heart sputtered like a candle and I scarcely brushed the pole’s candy-cane surface before consciousness slithered away from me.

To Be Continued….