Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Aron Ralston [81]
When my struggle feels most difficult, time swells, my agony expanding with it exponentially. I age faster, especially at night, when I lose the visual cues of time’s actual progression. Three minutes of tormented shivering consume ten minutes of perceived experience, like I’ve fallen into a wormhole where I endure excruciating maltreatment for immeasurable eons only to return to normal consciousness. But I have found an antidote to this misery: In the hazy freedom of my imagination, I dip and weave in the whispering clouds over the sea, whitecaps changing to swells as I head still farther west. I fly higher through the atmosphere, glancing back to watch the land turn into a green frame around the cobalt ocean, islands shrinking to pinpoints. Slicing up through icy swirls of crystallized water vapor, I spiral into the vast gulf of space, jettisoning my body in a final act of evolution, metamorphosing into a splash of colored light, an iridescent cluster of hovering photons.
A bout of shivering shuts down my fantasy, the dancing particles of light dissolving to black, and I open my eyes. My mind journey felt short, but checking my watch, I see that it’s nine-forty-five P.M. It was after nine when I noticed that it was dark enough to see stars. The same brilliant constellations I saw last night appear again in the narrow gap between the fissure’s walls. There are two that stand out from the others, like a pair of interlaced horseshoes. I wonder if one of them is the curved stinger of Scorpio, the Zodiac sign of my birthday, October 27. Regardless of their names, the unsympathetic stars are a somber reminder that there are no lights to pollute the view. I am so far removed from civilization that I might as well be on the moon.
“Ungg-gggu-ggga-gggngh.” My throat gives forth a series of unintelligible sounds as my teeth chatter, clacking spastically like a woodpecker’s drill.
Trying to capture what warmth I can from the continuing shudders, I rearrange my ad hoc clothing. The top coils of my climbing rope have loosened, exposing my thighs to the cold. I cinch the wraps tighter and weave the upper end around the highest five strands, hoping that will hold the coils above my knees. I experiment with using my rope bag like a miniature bivy sack, putting my left hand and arm inside the unzipped fabric tube, then tucking my head inside the flap. The tight confines of the bag force my head forward onto my wrist, which is marginally more comfortable if I set my left hand on my right biceps, near the shoulder. Sitting in my harness with my left hip against the canyon wall, I’m stable enough that I can lean to the right, resting my head on my left hand at my right elbow, and relax my upper body. It’s as if I’m putting my head down for a desk nap in elementary school.
I have produced enough warmth that I can sit in my harness inactive for almost fifteen minutes before the shivers come back. As my body quivers, the ropes loosen around my legs, and I gradually submit to fidgeting with my meager coverings for another half hour. Using my headlamp, I fuss over the ropes, fool around with the webbing looped around my right arm, adjust the punched-out camera sack on my left arm, squirm around in my harness to stimulate the circulation in my legs, and finally tuck my arm and head back into the rope bag, reassuming the position, as I have come to think of it. Another fifteen minutes of blessed idleness and then more shivers. A pattern emerges. I fidget for a half hour, raising my metabolic output enough that I can ease back in my harness for fifteen minutes. But always the cold wins, and convulsions rip through me, my jaw clenching in uncontrollable spasms until I think I’m going to shatter my teeth.
After the fourth cycle of action and repose, it’s midnight, time for my designated sip of water. The hours went by quickly. Not as fast as last night, but I’m conserving my calories more than I did last night.