Journey

by Simon von Wolkenstein

I’m holding my breath.

I’m holding my breath until you say yes.

Say yes.

Say yes.

But she said no. And the wind howled through the open door after her departure.

And in the haze that followed he began to travel. Only a little at first. From his bed to the toilet down the hall, one foot after the other barely able to negotiate the dimple where the floorboards ended and the carpet began. His head thick with misery. A misery and self-loathing that was so palpable he wished he could slice it and eat it on bread. Pushing it into his mouth with such force that his fist, stuck now behind his teeth, would block his airway and his life would be smothered and lost on those damn floorboards.

And thus he travelled. Achingly, lumpishly for months on end to the toilet and back. His housekeeper tended him like a sherpa following with casseroles to keep him alive. Recipes that hadn't seen the light of day for decades were resurrected to sustain him. Old family favourites from families long dead, combinations of ingredients that were no longer the fashion. Food from the time before she said ‘no’; a time that had now frosted over in his memory. His phone was cut off and the newspaper disappeared. After a time even the junk mail stopped.

One day his housekeeper came to him and said, “They have disconnected the water. I can no longer make casserole. I am leaving.” And he was gone.

He lay in bed for two more days before his thirst compelled him to travel to the bathroom but the taps ran empty. He could feel a draft blow through the cold tap and poked his tongue into the breeze but the air was dry and stole rather than gave moisture. He scooped dry pebbles and dust out of the toilet bowl and the flusher gave him nothing to slake his thirst.

And thus he was forced to increase the length of his travels and by degrees he eventually found himself in the gardens outside collecting rain in a frying pan. The grounds, now overgrown with creepers, shaded him from what little sunlight there was at this time of year and protected him from the winds that blew across the plain. Each day he would put on his dressing gown and make the journey to the garden to drink from his water bowl. He ate the berries from the briar and pulled peanuts from the ground and in this way he lived for another thirty-seven days.

On the thirty-eighth day the season changed and the snow began to fall. The berries fell to the ground and the ground froze over, trapping the peanuts behind an impenetrable glass which his hands were unable to break. Wrapped in his blankets and overcoats he tried to drill for them with an old hand drill but the bit snapped in the cold and his knee stuck to the ice leaving behind skin when he finally pulled himself back indoors.

And thus he broadened his search, travelling now into the sparsely wooded plains around his house. Forced to dress in many layers to keep out the chill, he carried an old bear trap prised from the wall of the library. These first days he caught nothing for his stomach. Eventually the rusty trap offered up a skinny groundfowl. Gutted and plucked, he roasted it on burning books in the library fireplace. In this half-light he would unthaw his heart before bed each night in readiness for the freezing of the coming day. The winter winds became worse than the winters of his past and the snowstorms set in like wolves. Every morning he would harden his resolve and face the elements again. The storm clouds made the day indistinguishable from the night and the hunting became longer and harder. The snowdrifts swallowed him up to his thighs and each step took such effort that he had to stop to recover before taking the next. On one day the darkness was such that he could not see his gloved hand in front of his face. As time passed and he learnt how to read the signs the skinny birds in the trap were replaced with wild pigs. The winter raged on around him as he went about his business: thawing ice to drink, laying his trap and cooking his meat. And so it was in the middle of the fiercest storm on the darkest day, up to his middle in ice slurry, that he smelt something on the wind. Something that made him think of something else. And though the wind drove him back and tore the hood from his head and though the skin on his face turned to ice he struggled forward towards the source of the smell. The blizzard railed against him and blew him onto his hands and knees and then his back and in the darkness he thrashed around for a handhold but instead found something else. A soft area in the darkness that yielded to his touch. He rolled over and pressed his face into the soft blackness and his exhaustion overcame him.

When he awoke the blizzard was worse and he was freezing but the day was lighter. A grey glow enveloped him allowing him to see his hands. He reached up to his face to feel for frost damage but there was none. His skin was wet but warm to touch. He looked down at the softness he had been lying in and saw a tiny density of winter flowers bursting through the snow. The down covered petals having protected his face now lay squashed into the ground. He searched the crushed foliage and found one bud still intact and picked it for his pocket. The wind whipped around him and tore at his clothes but the scent stayed with him as he made his way home home on his hands and knees.

That night he ate food leftover from the day before. He built a bigger fire than usual, burning volumes of some forgotten encyclopaedia. He lay in front of the fire and soaked in the heat. He unbuttoned his shirt and felt the warmth press onto his chest. The flower lay in a shallow dish of water near his head. The scent was so strong he could taste it. It clouded into his head and blossomed into a thousand images. It thawed the memories of times past and reminded him of all that he had lost. In that moment he let himself go and the sadness flowed out of him like blood. He wept until the blizzards stopped. And in that time the animals he caught for food moved on to other places and when he began to hunt again his trap turned up empty everytime.

And thus he was forced to travel farther afield. Walking now through the roads of outlying villages searching for roadside stalls. Bartering books for food or stealing from market gardens. He walked along snow-cleared pathways passing strangers who recognised him from before but saw in his eyes that he was in no mood to talk. The pain that had been stoppered up for so long and was now free had burnt him like an acid. The scar tissue in his mind had set hard a structure that all other thoughts now flowed through. In this way and at every moment he was always reminded of what he had lost. And although the winter became milder and he now fed himself through the simple commerce of the corner store, the real winter was only just beginning.

And so he lived. His life was like a bell, broadcasting with each sound its own emptiness.

And in the end when he died and others came to clear out his house there was a final misunderstanding. For in the library they found a book containing a single pressed winter flower of such permanence that even then, many years on, its scent was overpowering. And the people who looked upon it imagined that such a beautiful thing could only be a gift from a lover who wished to say thank you for the happiest time of her life.