Cold-Hearted
It was too late now. Too late for regret, to late for tears. He tried to laugh, but the air freezing his lungs was too painful, like inhaling needles. It was easy for him to see now how stupid this entire enterprise had been, how ultimately pointless. What upside had he seen? Why had he even considered this venture, let alone actually embarked on it?
He looked at the two motionless sleeping bags at his feet. They were already gone. Gone without so much as a whimper, just drifted from life to not life in silence.
He remembered the warning his father had given him about just such adventures.
"Don't take up pastimes where the primary objective is not to die. That's just foolishness, hubris. It's spitting in God's eyes."
He was right too. Mountain climbing was foolish, a shortcut on the road to death. Small reward for overwhelming risk.
He couldn't feel his legs anymore. The wind whipped outside the tent. It saddened him that the last thing he would hear would be the cruel zephyr ripping against the fabric, taunting him, laughing at his arrogance.
He tried moving his fingers. He couldn't determine if he was successful. He felt very tired now, but couldn't close his eyes. The lids were frozen open. He assumed he was nearly blind, but it was almost pitch black in the tent. All he could make out were the sleeping bags and his unfeeling legs.
He found himself well past self-pity. He knew he was done, that everything was done.
This is what comes of wanting to make a name for oneself, to be famous, no matter how briefly. He thought of a poem by Lao-Tzu.
Hundred year men,
none in the world,
yet we strive to make thousand year songs.
Beating out metal to bar out death.
Watching the ghosts clap hands and laugh.
He smiled despite the pain in his lips. He kept his hands over his mouth and breathed into them several times to warm them enough to feel them. He pressed them against his eyes and managed to thaw his eyelids enough to close them. His vanity demanded that he wouldn't be found with his eyes opened like a deer head on a wall. Or maybe it wasn't vanity. Maybe he thought it would be more comforting to those few people who cared about him to think he had simply fallen asleep.
He no longer heard the wind. His thoughts began spiraling madly. He wished he had fallen in love, he tried to remember the warmth of the sun and the taste of chocolate and coffee. He wanted a cigarette and a kiss. He hoped someone would take care of his cat.
Then quite suddenly his mind became clear. Regrets fled him and an all encompassing calm permeated his being. He drifted to his childhood as darkness engulfed him like a blanket, while outside in the cold night all the ghosts clapped hands and laughed.
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