Into Oblivion

The grey rock of the mountain is rough to touch. The bumpy rock has some jagged edges that hurt my hand. At least, they would, if my hand hadn’t been numb. But it is completely frozen, and I have lost sensation in it. I suppose that in reality, there’s nothing wrong with it, probably just a little bit of frostbite.

My shoulder tenses up. My hand slowly reaches upward, but quickly comes back down. My other hand extends upward carefully, searching the cliff for a place to hang on.

The cliff’s face is coated with snow and patches of ice. My hand touches a bit of snow. I could mistake it for grains of salt, or better yet, a white blanket under which I am sleeping comfortably, dreaming about things that I often dream about. My hand comes back down. Yet again, my other hand goes back up to search, looking in another direction. I find a satisfactory rock, and start to bend my elbow, pulling myself up. My other hand is still locked onto the first handhold. Just in case…

The powdery blanket of snow is brushed off by my hand, revealing something that I notice all too late. For there is no bumpy grey rock underneath the coating of white powder. No, my careless grab reveals something else altogether.

A light blue is revealed by my hand’s brush. The color is familiar, and the object is transparent. No, translucent. The object is translucent, but no bumpy grey rock is translucent.  My fingers unclasp from the ice jutting out from the face of the cliff. It all happens in milliseconds, I know, but it seems like forever as my ring finger, then my middle finger, and then my ring finger–

The ice snaps before I manage to get my hand back down to safety. It falls into oblivion, rotating over and over and over again. It comes to a halt on a tiny ledge, made of jagged black rock.

The shard of ice shatters, looking just like glass shattering. It falls into hundreds of tiny blue pieces, some coming to a rest on the jagged ledge, some shattering even more, and some falling into oblivion.

I breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that that is what would have happened to me if I had not kept one hand on the rough rock that ensured my safety. Yet I am not safe, and as my hand hangs limply by my side, my legs skid backward a millimeter and hang, kicking and flailing, over oblivion. Dangling by a single hand, I slowly lift my hand up, meeting my other one. My elbows bend. Pain courses through my body, heating up my numb hands. Pangs of pain spur my legs into action, and my body moves up, making its way back to the safe position that I started in.

My hand moves up once more as I search the jagged face of the cliff for a safe place to rest my hand. The wind beats against my body, viciously whipping against my cheek. The blanket of snow continues to cover the world around me as my hand finds a crack in the jagged rock.