#wind-blasted lines of trees and fields rolling with snow drifts’

[cultivating-wildflowers]

winter is so pretty and so treacherous

[ecotone99]

[MF] JIMMY (The One Who's Stuck)

Through the freezing air, and the frozen fields that extended endlessly was a man keeping warm with thoughts and movements.

He continued through the endless night with the moon up lurking behind. That's where the dry stone wall started. A hedge of tossed stones coming out of the dark, where a blank sign pointed where the stone wall went; into the void of the endless night, where the rolling green hills froze. He can see white letters where smudge off. Only letters left were T, G, T, H, R. He tried to figure out the word, the moon being his lantern. Nothing came of it. He went on. He went on the left side of the stone wall. Crinkles of frozen grass eased his anxiety through it all.

He watched the night sky. Cold clouds covered the salted stars now and then. He noticed something, like a mouse in tall grass. The stars moved in the sky. He watched as the north star moved to the south. What was this place? the thought that streamed through his river and fell off his mind.

As he looked to the south, he noticed something else; another mystery in these grasses. Some stones of the walls raddled. Not a shaking rattle like an apartment next to a trail line, but a subtle rattle. Moving ever so quietly in its place along the wall. As he touched the cold stones, his fingers made a blur. A blur slowly moved through his body, slowly infecting. Creating a smooth feeling. Warming the body slowly, then a voice spoke. Coming from the wall. From the seems in-between.

...like that...take me...like your lover...ill be here forever...come to the center of me

He put his ear to the seams between the stones, to the gaps that spoke.

...I'll eat you...to benefit you...take away the flesh that chains you...try to come...keep your hand on me...I'll give you warmth in the cold...I'll give you direction...I'll give you purpose...just keep your touch on me...for uusss.

The voice stopped. Sound of seizing, like skin being cooked by cold, came from the seams then. Before a blast of a ghostly glow punched him back with a cartoony shock. Skinning the frozen off the grass. Picking up the frozen dirt and throwing it. He got up, whipping the ice and dirt off of his green shirt and hole filled pants. His toes weren't however covered in an article of clothing. No shocks nor shoes, naked. The man was surprised that they weren't black and blue by now; only the stinging of cold flesh with the sharpness of the frozen grass.

He went on, keeping his distance from the wall, and kept walking through the darkness, as he has been doing since he woke up in this frozen land.

Birds filled the dark air. He heard them far above. He can't tell if they were geese's, or ravens. Either way, he couldn't and didn't matter. They fell from the sky like bombs when frozen. Exploding into crystal bits in the far distance where the wandering man couldn't see them, but hear faint splats on frozen ground.

The crackles of the frozen ground didn't sound normal when he slowly walked on them (like this place is normal) but then an echo coming from all around. It ringed in his ears and it wouldn't stop. He tried to think back to the past before all of this. His mother and a shattered car. All appeared at once. That's where the chains came back. Hiding among the winds.

Something appeared out of the dark. As he got closer, it spoke. Not a chirp from a bird but a human voice. Or a voice that could come from a tree perhaps. He walked closer to the phantom sounds. But no organic plant laid before him, but a man, chain to the stone wall; snow eating away the flesh that he had left.

The man lifted his head from its choked place, still, snow on top of his head fell to his exposed shoulders.

"You," the chained man said.

His eyes fished a hook to the wondering man's eyes, keeping them in his cold gaze. The wandering man looked at him, his face a pale skull. Questions arise, but the fear took hold first.

"You!" He repeated.

He laid against the wall, trying to move up, but the chains held him down.

"You fuck!” he lurched forward, chains catching him again, scratching the rust off from the interlocked U's. “Why did you leave me?"

The wandering man tried to speak. Cold winds froze his spoke.

"Why did you...huh?"

"I didn't," The wandering man replied.

"But you did!" the man snapped at him. He lifted his hands from under the foot of snow. Showed his hands to him, and the fingers that weren't there. But upon looking closer, they were there, but bent backward, like bark on white aspen during the wet spring, twisting to the other side. Including the thumbs.

"I didn't. I just couldn't,"

The wandering man looked on with horror. Trying to think through the yells the chained man gave him. Winds grew stronger. He can see the chains that were around him but weren't around, but in him; digging through the frostbitten skin over the years. Into his shoulders, past the collar bones were the chains laid and with every movement, every thought of it, the chains dug deeper into his body. They grew cold every night, sticking to the muscles and veins within, and rotting like chicken.

"You did, and always will," His upper lip was gone, chewed off. Showing his toothpick teeth.

"That's not me!" He yelled against the man.

"It is who you are, you bastard!'

The chained man looked at the wandering man for a long time,

"Why did you come back this time!"

"...What?" He spoke softly.

"You'r...youn...n...n" he trailed off, his head fell back, laying against the stone that kept him comfortable. His blue eyes spoke last. The chained man saw what he wanted in the wandering man. Pain. He died as he lived. Chained to that wall.

The wind grew, not wanting him to stare. He crouched down to the dead man, putting his fingers over the eye to close them. Realizing they were none.

He shoveled the snow off of his body. Most of what he saw was dead muscles or brown bone. Only the upper part of the torso had skin; which was blackened. His hair home to snow like whip cream on top of a fudge sundae. He followed the chains down, tracing them with his hands. Finding underneath all the snow, were the chains intercepted to make an X, was a lock. The weight was heavy, thinking it was iron.

The keyhole was filled with ice, unbreakable, impassable. He yanked at it. Didn't budge. He yanked again. Didn't budge once more; only the snow falling off the body did and there was an 'L.L.' inscribed above the keyhole. In lavish curls.

He thought that this lock was the only thing holding him back, holding him from freedom, was adding the opportunity to live freely; to escape a nightmare. All of that was pinned on that lock.

It was a lost cause, long before he arrived. But he still can live, he can leave and walk freely. He did as he thought. He counted through the night blizzard; living the body of someone that couldn't. He saw the sunrise behind him as he looked back, and the bloody footprints imprinted in the snow.

* * * * *

An oddity was shown in the distance. He didn't know what it was, but it wasn't a rolling hill in the sun-filled part of this distant landscape and the grass grew in the waking minutes of the snow melting; up to the shin within the hour. Like the moon before, time isn't but a cooking noodle here.

He switched between each side of the wall. From the right to the left and back again. Untimely switching back to the right. He did this to keep him from remembering the chained man; remembering the living corpse that yelled. He drifted from the recent memories to grass that tickled his feet, grazing the tip of the blades. His mind painted the memory with increasing enhancements. More blood. Less snow. More yelling. That's what memory does. Enhance's the worst of it. Like the car that he remembered earlier that night. The crushed door and blacked wheel. And his mother, pale with green eyes, in the tire well. No specific moment, just an image. Maybe that's the worst of it. In memory.

He rested once again, but away from the wall this time. Upon a green hill, far into the tall grass. The grass between his toes tickled, only a little but that was the least of it. Heat cooked his checks to a sizzling red. Aging the skin. Once he got up from his rest, he had gray hairs in his eyes, wrinkles in his face. Aged but not old. He longed for the cold now, when he was young.

As he walked down the hill to meet the wall again, he saw how it was in the landscape, the wall. How it didn't bend in any way, only straight through it all. From what he saw up there, it never cut through the landscape, only surfing it; but all were around it. Completely and utterly straight. And that's when he saw the hump once again, more clearly now. From where he saw it, it was something artificial, something that didn't roll with everything. He squinted, his 20/15 eyes could almost see it. But whatever it was, it lined up with the directions the sun was heading, into a sunset. But it was almost midday. The sun is like a big hand on a clock. Almost hitting the 12th hour, and the 12th hour was the top of the sky. He didn't know what else the night would bring. If it will snow again. To be caught in the cold again, that's what he didn't need.

He needed to take a shit, not a big one, but not a normal one either. A small one. Possible from the grass that he ate on top of the hill he was resting on. So he knelt, dug a hole with his hands. Seeing that the soil was fresh with moisture. He wondered if he could dig deep enough where water would appear. He did exactly that, but when he saw and tasted the water. It wasn't water. It was and wasn't all at the same time. He swallowed and it didn't go down his throat. He got another hand full. He slurped it up faster. Same result. He tried a handful of times more, the same results with every try.

"So drink this"

He squatted over the drinking hole, and let it fall; felt lighter afterward. He grabbed the biggest blades of grass he could find in his area. Squat hoping to reach the ones out of his reach. He dropped the used grass down the shit hole and pushed the dug up dirt into the hole. Patted the dirt down. Home Grown fertilizer at its finest, he thought with a hook smile. When he counted down the wall, he looked back to see if he had grown taller than the grass around it. It so had.

The grass grew as he went along the wall. Growing to his waist and bending over the wall. No longer a spring green, but a summer gold.

He passed his palms along, with the tips of the dagger grass tickling. Walking along the wall faster and faster, but not quite running. Not sprinting to the finish line just yet. That's when it happened again, the rattling of chains; coming with the warmth. Coming to him only. Stopping him in his tracks. His only thought was not a thought at all, but a feeling. He felt it cooling his body. Making the sun's heat irrelevant. He walked. Waiting for something to come, the chain-man? Not the chain-man. As the wandering man walked slowly along the wall, closely as a baby would hug a breast.

"You?"

The spoken words cut through the grass. He fell into the tall grass, cheek against the dirt. His breath escaping his lungs. Heavy gasps. A voice came from the other side of the wall. It said something. Hard to hear with only the pluses of his heart in his ears. Leaving was the want, the need, the ability. But the hook has already clenched him here, like before. He can't leave until he finds what's casting that hook. He looked over the wall, his new founded long grey hair was in his eyes, masking the image. He could still see what's behind the wall of hair. Blue eyes stared back at him, with the flesh of younger than his. A boy, transitioning into adulthood, like his body before falling laying on the hill but; man into aged, boy into a teen. The boy was chained to the wall, with them in a criss-cross X. The boy held the lock in one hand and some else was in his other hand. He looked up at the old man. Fear of the familiar face.

"How did you come back? Why did you?"

Long silence before an answer came.

"I don't know"

"Why don't you know?" The chained boy said.

The answer lingered. Trying to say more than 'I don't know'.

"Just to see you again I guess," the fear left.

The boy flabbergasted, clenched what was in his hand. The aged man sat down against the wall, wanting to rest again.

"To free me?" the boy suddenly asked.

He can hear the boy's breath growing deeper from the other side of the wall.

"Yes," he lied.

"Then help me,"

"Not just yet, want some rest. The suns a killer you know", the boy perfectly knew.

He put his head back against the wall, cheeks to the blue sky. Eyes closed to the darkness of his mind.

"Why are these..." the boy couldn't find the word.

"Chains," the aged man said, eyes still closed.

"...On me?" the boy finished.

The old man shrugged, the boy knew what was said. Another long silence came. Only the wind spoke.

"Why do I walk? Huh... Why do I... age the more I walk along this wall. Why?" he fiddled his finger in the space in between the rocks, to where the cold laid watching.

"Maybe you should stop walking," the boy said.

The aged man chuckled.

"And be like you,"

The aged man only laid silence and ignored as he felt his mind, his conscious, falling slowly back into his head. Into a dream. Possible leaving this world...

"Sometimes when I dream once in a while, mostly on clear nights, like last night. I see this house.... this blue house. And a peach skeleton dancing on the roof, laughing like a bat. Pointing at me,"

The aged man opened his eyes.

"Peach?" the aged man asked.

"I don't know, just peach. That's what's been screaming at me. Peach."

"Keep on dreaming kid," said, pushing the words through his relaxed lips.

"That's the only dream I'm doing. I have every-,"

"What was the color of the house again?" The aged man interjected.

"Blue, a... like sea blue. Why?"

The aged man lingered on the question longer than the boy wanted.

"Did you live in the blue house?" the aged man asked, becoming an on-the-spot physiologist.

A long silence came, with the wind that blew down on the aged man's question, spoken in his head. He wanted to ask his age, where his mother is, and his name. About to speak the questions, swimming on the tip of his teeth. But the wind took his thoughts. Then, another appeared.

"What do you have in your hand?" the aged man asked.

"...a rock from the wall, just chopping away at these chains,"

The mouse that lied, the aged man thought.

"Could I see it? Just curious how sharp that rock can be,"

He heard the boy try to tug and pull at the dry rocks of the other side. Too tight for his child's hands.

"I don't think I can throw it over," the boy said.

"Sure you can, young and strong,"

"No,"

"Do what an adult tells you. Your mother must' told you better?"

"I won't it's mi-"

The aged man jumped the stone wall, twisting his ankle; easier than he thought. As he fumbled on the ground, the boy clenched his already clenched hand evermore, like a housewife seeing a mouse on the ground. But it wasn't the mouse he was starting at, it was an aged stranger with the eyes of a killer. That's when he feared this man, not before as a babe, all those years ago. But now. Why was he so nice to him before?

When he was done with the boy, he grabbed what was in his twisted hand. A key, a key to a lock. He then didn't look at the boy. At his disfigurement. But at the lock in the middle of crossing X chains. He squatted and put it in the keyhole.

He couldn't look at the boy anymore. Already seeing what he had done. It was the same as watching the butcher cut the head off of a chicken, but not watching the chicken squatching around headless.

It didn't turn, it didn't even fit inside of the keyhole. Above the keyhole was 'L.L', indented iron curls.

He walked on, creating distance between him and the boy. Nothing to look back to this time. Only the shouts of a vengeful boy clawed his shadow. Shouts and cries of bloody tears.

"That's all I have left..."

The boy said, outstretching his hand with the point of broken twigs. Chains holding him to the cold rocks, never to release.

"Kill you! Kill you for all you've done!' he spat the words, 'I'll see you again, just you wait!"

You won't like the end, the aged man thought and took steps forward. He thought it would be hard to take those steps, but it wasn't.

He went on, the aged man, to the place where the sun would fall; he picked hair out of his closed fingers and looked at the key. The shouts became quiet, blended with the wind in hours of walking straight ahead. He turned his head as far as he could, seeing black circles twisting in the distant sky. He turned back forward, wondering not of the boy's fate, he already knew, but his. Something he didn't know.

* * * * *

The sun started to set, slowly smearing down the blue sky. He looked down at his fist, rage still pumping through it hours later. The key was in the hep of hair. Like a needle in a haystack, only shining at him, through it all. He started to scratch the dried blood off his fingernails.

Never did the wall bend or curve, that is a fact of nature. That was until the aged man came upon a destructive gap of the wall. It looked like dynamite did its work, spreading the stone far and wide. As he walked closer to this gap, a dead tree laid where the gap in the wall was. Dried and stripped of skin.

He shuffled along the grass slowly, closer to the tree. The tree broke the wall in two. The aged man can see the stomp, with little holes spread throughout. What did this? Wind? Forceful destroyed? Came to the age? Born Wrong? He didn't care to know, so that's why he sat on the corpse. Hands holding his chin up, the key keying into his skin.

The sun to his back and shadow with his face, he cried into his hands. It was an over explosion of...this...loneliness. That feeling that you'll find that one person, the perfect one. Then you're dying alone in your apartment at fifty. You think to yourself that person just slipped through your fingers in high school. Or even in middle school. But there wasn't ever that one person. It was just you and yourself, talking in the musty dark. That was a feeling to make him cry, to cry dust and sand.

He looked at his filled birdbaths, at the key that sunk to the bottom. He craved what he thought was his name into the tree. The key was quite dull and it took a while, but when he finished, he realized it wasn't his name.

Footsteps tiptoed behind him, before hands hugged his back, ramping around his shoulders. He felt ahead rested on his shoulder, the chin digging in.

"Mom?"

He couldn't control his chin anymore, it slipped into uncontrollable stuttering. He placed his empty hand on his mother's arm, holding it tight.

"I...I... I can't anymore. I just can't," the aged man said, tears dripping into the grass.

Her breath was steady, like life as a child, and her skin smelled...of burning tires.

"Can you talk to me? Please...I just want your voice in my ears" Judith didn't speak, her hands did. One of them unwrapped itself around him and pointed to the closed fist. The fist with the key. She returned to hugging him, tighter this time. Before slipping away.

"No! Don't leave me!"

He turned to catch her hand, but she was away. He tripped over the log and looked up at her silhouette in the blazing sun that laid on the hills. Seizing away in the distant horizon. The light was blinding him in every way. Making his eyes water, and his skin to wrinkle. His hair faded into transparency. A ghost of his former self growing into his skin. The grass around him turned into pumpkin puke color. Slowly severing and growing old.

He counted, like always, up a hill that blocked the constant beating of heat with a hub of shadow. As he climbed the steep hill, he felt air escaping him. But still went on. A hunch came to him, and then some of his teeth fell one by one. Disappearing into the pumpkin puke grass. He tried to grave them before looking up again. Nose dripping like melting butter. Beard flowing into wild grays. Muscle drifting away from the bone. Left eye grew white clouds; before going away forever. This is what his body has come to. Like the boy who grew into a mangled virgin, twisted and torn beyond survivability. But still survived, like the old man is now. Not shaking death's hand until he gets where he wants to go.

He slumped to the side, using the wall as his cane.

The sun clasped with his eye upon reaching the top. Then he saw it. Over the zenith of the grass hill, was... a house. Where the wall ended, in a tossed stone pile. He ran as fast as he could with his hunchback. Skipping like a schoolgirl all the way home.

What mesmerized the old man was not the house itself, but the color. Blue. The word stuck to him; the letters spoke to him.

"B as in the bend," he said.

The grass started to turn into dirt, into a path.

"L as in lost,"

Words began to make him mumble.

"U...as in' unfortunate,"

He passed the tossed stone pile, approaching a gate with no fence at its sides. A peeling white wooden gate.

"E....as the' end."

The wind came again. The wind that the sun brings. He slowed and slumped into the fading yellow grass. The finish line was there, right there, beyond the peeling white gate. He wanted to sleep then, the grass as his pillow. He laid down, didn't know for how long but he did. Fingers molested the dirt, ripping the grass like hair from the boy. He saw it more, the house. Through the gaps between the wooden gate. The house was blue, a dark blue, what you see a navy officer wearing when giving out pamphlets to high schoolers. It was also peeling, like the gate, but much worse. The dark brown of the wooden was showing, and like a decaying body, the skin always falls off first.

He was relaxed then, all so relaxed. The sun was his blanket then, keeping him warm. The sun shot through the windows of the ramp around the deck of the house. Shadows of the T in the window cast across the gate and the stone pile behind. It cast a cold on him, waking him from almost dreams. He looked up, at green eyes staring before him. A baby was standing there, looking around the gate. Looking down at him.

"Whov' ary you?" the baby asked.

The old man tried, really tried this time. To remember. But clouds of an everlasting storm blocked the answer.

"...Who cares,"

"I'll do" The babe replied.

The babe came around, exposing that cold in which the blanket protects. The babe tried to open the mailbox, but couldn't reach the grabbing hook. A black-spotted hand grasped the hook easily. The gesture said: "It got it".

He looked in the mailbox with an intrusive stare. 761 plated it, rusted with the breath of time.

"Nothing but the dust that stares back," the old man said.

The babe looked up at the old man.

"Do wovds spek like that tu you?"

He couldn't understand at first, words were new to the babe.

"No, I do to them," Breath didn't want him to speak then.

A long silence, both looking at each other. One up the other down. Two walks of life, both their end.

The babe grabbed the old man's only open hand and spoke.

"Do yov ned help?" the babe asked.

"With what?"

"Walk to my home."

The old man slapped the hand away.

"No...I... don't," he spoke as slowly as he could.

The babe wanted to speak, wanted to slap back, but he learned his lesson the first time. Until given the chance to stand taller, he doesn't see that happening anytime soon.

Babe ran back, blasting through the gate. The old man went around the gate, closed it as he passed it.

The babe put the brakes on his running feet in the dirt path, like a car hitting the brakes at the last minute, screeching across it.

"Let's go. Dinner is in home." he ran to the house, even faster than before. The old man limped on, not worrying about who got there first.

The old man realized then how much he hated that babe, that boy, that frozen corpse. His youth pushed him to the side as he did to him before. People are just painted mirrors, waiting to be smashed. And he was the one looking into them.

"I'm coming yov' little shit,"

The babe at the peeling white steps of the house, tapping his foot against the boards like he's playing double bass, asked: "What's shit?"

Surprised he could hear him, replied louder this time.

"You!"

The babe chuckled. Ran back through the red front door, yelling: "he mama, I'm a little shi-" before the door slammed closed behind him.

As he slowly slumped his way over to the front door, he saw what was chipping blue steel, peeking around the corner of the house. Blinking at him to fuck. He wasn't interested, something else caught his eye. The red of the door.

Slowly slammed his light feet against the white steps. The door was right there, The finish line, only steps away. He can sleep now. Relief poured on him. He reached out for the nob. Loud thumbs came from the other side, then a sliding click. He grabbed the bronze mirror and twisted it. He tried again and again and again. Only the stiff acceptance of 'NO'.

"Open this door, you shit!" He pounded the door. Hitting harder every hit. He looked to the windows on the wrapped around deck. He ran to them, but the blinds closed as he looked in. One by one they all closed. He went back to the door and pounded again, chipping the newly painted red. Exposing what's underneath.

"I'll get in there....' He realized then. Looking down to the fist that keeps close. To the hand that held sin, the original sin in the shape of a key,

He put it in the keyhole of the nob. But that wasn't the hole it was meant to fill, a hole that was never meant to turn. It was a key to something more valuable. Hope was the first feeling, the other was just around the corner.

The old man jumped down the steps, bruising his knees, and went around the house to where the bitch peeked before. Plymouth, old as him, lay waiting. In chipping blue. The front faced him, smiling chrome and all. Including the license plate, which is displayed in white font surrounded in sunset color, it said: 'TO-GET-HER'.

After slamming the hollow metal door, he turned the keys, almost snapping it. The engine started and the slapping thunder moved up his legs to his balls, feeling the power in his hands. He put it in Drive. Watched as the orange marker in the dash said the same. He turned the wheel a full 180 before pushing the peddle beyond the floor of the car. Flatting the grass with a scar that heals.

He followed the tire marks in the grass from the past, away from the house, into the setting sun far into the distance. Farther than he ever walked. The grass was now a yellow blur from the speeding bullet.

Getting to the finishing line wasn't enough. Going away from it. Going beyond it. To where this car came from. To where dinner had to be brought. To where his mother was. To the sun.

Deep purple faded the sky, washing away the blue and orange. That's when he looked at his hand, the same hand that pounded the door. A dark blue mixed with yellow. He lifted it from the wheel and looked at it. His entire hand was that destroyed color. Growing like water filling a box, all the way to the tip of his fingers. That is when they grew smaller, the tip of his fingers. The skin grew tighter and tighter around the finger bones. Simultaneously he felt the tightening on the tip of his toes. It moved up his arm and legs. The old man screamed as he turned the car around, to get younger. Screaming as the air escaped him with the squish of his lungs. His neck closed, choked. Saliva spilling out. Castration of the balls. Lips hooked back to the ears, exposing his rotting teeth. His bread grew thin and clear, falling off into his lap. Ears, folding into themselves. Forehead ripping back into his scalp. Eyelids curling back and back, never to close again. Eyes watering his checks before drying into white raisins. With a smell of the past in the air. The pedal pressure was released, but it was too late.

As the babe and his mother sat, telling him not to talk to strangers, flying glass and wood shards came from the sink window.

* * * * *

The skeleton of skin laid in the car before slugged out of the totaled car window. Flopping on the floor, and not seeing the mother and her blue distance eyes staring back at him from the wheel well. The skin skeleton, blind, walking with all since gone, up a flit of stairs. Pass a door, with chains in a broken X pattern. Leaving the basement door open to the endless fields. And to him.

The skin skeleton found a bed, he didn't know who or how-just that it was soft. The skeletons' last thoughts were that he didn't have thoughts, only the feeling of being nothing. To the world or himself.

* * * * *

Pass the broken red door and ruined deck, crawled the babe, out of the flames that consumed the house; birth from the pain he was then. Remembering the face of the old man. Not the sagging spotted skin, or the faded hair, but his green eyes; that preached such kindness. He dragged himself across the dirt path, afraid of the fire catching him. He passed the fence gate. Seeing that the gate was gone besides the studs sticking out of the dirt that held the door, unharmed. Unfortunately, the mailbox wasn't so lucky. It swings in the wind. Before the last strand of wood snapped, and with a scratched sound slide down the rusted tin box. The babe heard it, like a mouse in a field. He saw something shine at him through the dead grass, something that fell and bounced into the grass. It wasn't dust forming into a beautiful swirl. No. A key instead.

After falling fast sleeping, laying on the tossed stone pile, and clenching the key that killed him, came the rain. It didn't wake him, and it doused the fire and its blackened wood into ash, soon to be blown away. The rain covered the sound of closing footsteps on the night. With eyes more than a stranger.

The next morning, cold chains hugged; and with someone later, to find the aftermath, of what time does.

submitted by /u/RedSpotWork [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/3g779ub

[johnnypovolny]

Torres del Paine, 2/22-3/1

TL;DR: Torres del Paine National Park blew my mind by showing me something more beautiful each day than the last, something I kept believing wouldn’t be possible and then continually got proven wrong.

(Photos posted separately because there are so many)

Friday 2/22: Took a nap on the bus ride to the park and woke up to view of the Torres and surrounding mountains above gold fields under the almost full moon. Looked down this amazing valley that was filled with mystical light through the fog and it looked like something out. Hiked from Laguna Amada (the park entrance) to Torres Central (the normal starting point the shuttle takes people to) and got a really good angle to view the Torres and the sheer vertical rock wall to the right of them (known as The Condor’s Nest). Started hike towards Seron- the trail was somewhat muddy and river running down it from time to time. At first a kind of nondescript hike but then came through forest and out onto a hill overlooking this lush green valley (a really neat contrast to the surrounding tan hills) with a twisting slate grey/blue glacier river twisting through it and mountains in the background with a sharp horizontal line of color difference on them that I can’t tell if it’s shadow or fog. Lots of hills with vertical stripes of snow among the brown of the hill that make them look like white rivers.

Saturday 2/23: Started in a sort of pastoral field from Seron with a view of the same “snow rivers” on the mountain, but new snow fell overnight and covered the dirt, so the hills were all misted with white that melted back to brown over the day. Went along the river and past a few small waterfalls. Detoured to high ground to avoid the marsh next to river, which is really swollen and fast running from all the flooding and the normal path is basically marsh and huge puddles, climbed up over the ridge and suddenly got  blasted with wind and this expansive view of Lago Paine which is that same gorgeous slate blue glacier color with the first view of truly huge mountains in the background. This seems to be a theme- almost every day of the trip I’d crest some ridge and get a face full of wind and an eyeful of an insane vista. I recorded a video for my brother Mark, who I felt like would really connect with this place in a deep way. Hiked along the lake and down to the Coiron ranger station, had lunch with the a pair of older American doctors (who we’ve nicknamed Mustache and the Perv) and then started walking with Barnaby and Liz (a really cool English couple I met at seron). We walked towards the mountains we’d seen from up on the hill and as we went we kept getting different angles: a huge scooped out valley in the mountains, giant sharp triangle peaks, and one of my favorite mountains ever, “Cerro El Cubo”, a huge square-topped mountain sort of shaped like an ancient obelisk or a smaller version of Half Dome (flat on one side and rounded on the other), poking up through fog/clouds around its base that sometimes cleared to show a big wall-like foothill at the bottom of it. Looked like a wizard’s fortress or a mountain where the gods live. As we got closer we could see two arms of an ice blue glacier coming down either side of the foothill mountain, and coming over the last hill I saw Lago Dickson with the camp nestled on a promontory sticking out into it, a piece of the glacier floating in the water and the whole scene surrounded by mountains half covered in clouds and half dappled with surreally clean, bright sunlight sunlight. Came down to camp and read/walked around the grey sand beach, saw gorgeous red and grey wild foxes the size and shape of a big coyote, had dinner with Liz and Barn and two couples from Australia: Luke and Laura and Shayne and Lauren. Played some cards with Mariano Tym from Argentina, Diana from Arizona, and Laura from Vermont (who all three ended up becoming close friends over the course of the trip and we’re traveling together more afterwards).

Sunday 2/24: From Dixon, went through a forest with significant immediate climb. Larger trees, less like cyprus and more like maples or oaks. Got some great views back over Lago Dickson and up towards the next mountain set- had a big peak of the same light tan rock the Torres are made from with a sheer 500 foot tall wall. Caught up to Lucy and Luke and walked with them for the afternoon. Went along a sunny ridge with a mountain over the green trees to the left and through a forest, got first sight of the Perros Glacier from next to the river. Climbed up to a super windy ridge (shocking) of small rocks and got this amazing look at it- brightest ice blue and ranged with that tan mountain on one side, a dark sharp obsidian looking one on the other, and a murky bluish brown glacial lake below it. Walked along the river and over an open field of large loose river stones to the Los Perros camp which is in a copse of dense small trees.

Monday 2/25: It rained all night and we were required to leave at 7 in case of weather in the pass so we got up at 530 and all broke camp in the dark. Walked with Luke and Laura for the morning. Path immediately went upward through forest- super crazy muddy and wet with tons of water coming down- essentially like walking in a river bed. Climbed through the forest and onto a rainy windswept ridge then back down into the cyprus-looking trees really steep, looked like a cave entrance. Next started the climb to Paso John Gardener, which really made us work for it (or as we later described tough sections that made us stop singing: “really beat the Norah Jones out of you”): there were strong cutting winds and freezing rain on an exposed climb which seemed neverending, crossing snow and big loose stones. My hands legitimately felt like they were going to get frostbite. At the top of the pass we caught up to Mariano, Di, and Laura and I was rewarded with a chocolate cookie from Mariano and the first view of Glaciar Grey! It’s immense beyond description- stretches off to the left to the lake and to the right out of sight up towards its source in the mountains, and has smaller glaciers coming down from the mountains behind to join it. It’s bright blue in some spots, lighter white elsewhere, and brown with dust near the edges. Some parts have smooth curved bumps but most of it is toothlike and sharply jagged, with tons of vertical striations/cracks from its passage down the valley. In the lake to its south are huge icebergs that have broken off it, the size of islands. Climbed down towards the glacier on exposed slope, then down through a dense forest of trees that looked like bonsai made big- really twisted and Asian looking like mangroves and with the same smooth bark. Eventually after dropping for forever, reached Camp Paso. Grabbed a bite to eat and then continued walking with Mariano- down and up through forest sometimes, on ridges others, and across 3 huge suspension bridges that span rivers coming down from giant steep chimney valleys in the rock above. After 8 hours, soaked, cold, and exhausted, reached Camp Grey, which is sort of nondescript and sits in the trees next to its fancy white hotel, but satisfied the need we chanted about for the last hour of the hike: “HOT SHOWER!” It was an incredibly taxing day but with the incredible reward of seeing my first real large scale glacier! Played a wagers card game with the group and added a new friend to it- Filip, a photographer from Slovakia.

Tuesday 2/26:

Walked down from Camp Grey to the Glacier Grey Mirador with Luke and Lucy- amazing view of the glacier from the same altitude as it: there are big icebergs floating in the bay to the left of the mirador, a rock promontory to the right which gives you some perspective for its size, and the glacier dead ahead- immensely steep and sloping sharply upward so it looks almost like a wall (you think of it as a flat thing of ice but its more like a huge hill)

Luke and Lucy are staying for a rest day so we  parted and I walked solo for the morning, singing and enjoying the sunny day. Kind of a high desert feel of rolling tan underbrush, Lago Grey on one side and on the other a steep cliff with the mountains behind it. Went through a beautiful section of grey dead trees with a sharp mountain as their backdrop

Caught up to Filip, Tym, Laura, and Diana. Walked/hung with them for the rest of the trip (multiple days). We had lots of great conversation: actually deep/personal questions and discussions about all sorts of life topics. Passed Lago Patos whose water looked like a small ocean- the same color and with the same white-capped, wind-blown surface. Next we got a view of Lago Pehoe in distance, which is the color of ocean on Thai islands and surrounded by tan and green, amazing. Hiked down through a New Mexico-esque desert canyon to the Paine Grande camp, which is in big field of brown grass and right next to the lake. It’s so incredible to be this close to so much of this tropical island water color- completely unexpected to see that hue in this setting. We can see the back of the Torres from by the lake, with a huge cylinder of mountain next to them that looks exactly like a citadel or temple in Game of Thrones: a light brown vertical cylinder that looks like walls with a darker brown peak that looks like a roof. Along with El Cubo, this is one of my favorite mountains in the whole park. Next to it is a brown, A-shaped mountain and we saw a bright white jet stream pass over the top of it against the perfectly blue sky and drift gently laterally in the wind. In the evening we all went down to the lake side to talk, and Filip was taking photos of everyone because he liked the evening light so much. Then he wanted one of himself so he and I literally chased the fading light through the fields- I felt like a Nat Geo photographer running with a camera after a shot. Went up on the hills next to camp for sunset: Filip wanted me to sing something while he tooks photos, so I sang “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley, then we all drank whiskey together and watched the sun set over the lake and the wind blow patterns in the surface of the water. On the way down, the group all sang together a bunch- the main song was “Don’t Know Why” by Norah Jones, which stayed stuck in all our heads for days. After dark, went stargazing down by the lake.

Wednesday 2/27:

The whole group walked together again today (besides Tym who caught up to us at lunch). Beautiful sunny day, hiked up directly towards the Citadel mountain (even more impressive the closer we got) and the A-shaped mountain. As we came to the river next to Italiano camp, we crossed a (really scarily) swingy suspension bridge and got this crazy view up the river bed of the back of the A-shape mountain, which is covered in snow and ice patches that have waterfalls coming down from under them all over. Ate lunch by the steam in the sunshine and drank fresh glacier water directly from it with our faces. Hiked up the valley towards the waterfall covered mountain and watched big chunks of ice and snow falling off that make a thunder sound and leave trickling falling snow for a few seconds like new waterfalls. Got up past the mountain (steep hike up the valley) and into open rock field with view of the whole top of the valley, and could see the stone mirador poking through the trees above us like Star Wars watchtowers (so it reminded me of Tikal in Guatemala). From there and later from the mirador, we got this crazy view of all the mountains around us: because the valley is bowl shaped and the mountains are so huge, the view had this optical illusion where it seemed like it was a photo taken through a fish-eye lense: curved upwards at the edges and bowl shaped- really trippy. All of us but Tym (who went through to Cuernos) ended up hiking to Frances camp and having to set up 3 tents on Laura and Dianna’s one platform, which was ridiculous and cramped but silly and fun.

Thursday 2/27:

Dianna, Laura, Filip and I hiked through to Central camp from Frances. Kind of an up and down hike without any huge jumps of altitude, went along Njordenskold lake which was almost completely still and was reflecting the little green hills behind it like mirrors. Had a bunch more really awesome conversations about the nature and challenges of relationship and communication, our fears, etc. I’ve liked this whole group a ton: Tym is really silly, kind, earnest, and uninhibited. Filip is pretty serious but an interesting person with a lot happening in his head. Laura is chatty and earnest with a lot of understanding of who she is and what she likes. Diana is super sarcastic and extremely funny- she has this weird goofy energy that’s totally unselfconscious, so it’s really attractive, and she’s really interesting and easy to talk to. Had a blast getting to know all these folks.

Friday 3/1:

Woke up at 2:30 to hike to the Torres for sunrise with Tym, Laura, Diana and Filip (who had to turn back because he forgot his camera but met us up top). Got up there (after a brutal steep hike in the dark) at around 6. Set up camp in my sleeping bag on a rock table top right next to the lake with a great view of the towers, which were clear and unobscured. The crescent moon was out and there was a patchwork of small clouds and bright stars. As dawn started to break, small clouds gathered near and behind the Torres, which was perfect because they caught the sunlight and turned bright pink. We all shared the last of my pisco and watched as the pink color crept over the Torres and then onto the wall to the right of them, then turned to a gentler morning light, and then to the bright yellow of direct sunlight. Hiked down, broke camp, and caught the bus back to Puerto Natales. I checked in to a little guest house room that Darek got me for Christmas and then went to meet everyone (Laura, Diana, Mariano, Lucy, Luke, and Marshall) for dinner at Afrigonia, a fusion place in downtown Puerto Natales. Ate salmon ceviche with a coconut milk sauce and lamb rump with port and apricots, pretty tasty and great to have a real meal after the hike. After dinner we went to Base Camp and got beers and ice cream sandwiches. It was a really nice evening- there was this air of celebration because we had all finished something really tough, and reunion because we hadn’t seen Lucy/Luke and Marshall in a few days since we finished on separate itineraries. It also kind of oddly felt like a dinner party among old friends- really warm, intimate vibe of laughter and enjoyment. A great way to round things off.