Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Aron Ralston [82]
Don’t you do it, Aron.
Commanding my hand to reseal the Nalgene, I recognize that I am managing to control my reactions and fight my raw instincts with a rational strategy for long-term preservation. Sometime, in the next twenty-four hours, most likely, I will run out of water. I wonder what my discipline will have me do then. Will I continue my ritual of opening the Nalgene, trying to eke the last molecule from the hard plastic bottle? I envision my tongue dryly searching the rim of the long-empty bottle, scraping over the Lexan in a deranged hope.
Returning to the pattern of fidgeting and rest, I mentally pace myself for the next six hours. Eight more cycles of adjusting the ropes and coverings, interspersed with ten- or fifteen-minute periods of stasis, and dawn will be here. I can’t sleep, but sitting still helps me focus my energy. I avoid thinking about rescue or any of my self-rescue options. Most of the time, I stare at my breath, condensing on the inside of the waterproof rope bag. For some reason, it’s more comforting to leave my headlamp on for a few minutes each time I tuck my head into the bag; I think it helps stave off claustrophobia. The bag is a bit bigger than a plastic grocery sack, the kind you’re not supposed to let children play with. It’s counterintuitive to put my head inside it, but it makes a noticeable improvement in reducing my heat emission to the night sky. Once I’m accustomed to the black-plastic-coated interior, I turn off my headlamp and listen to my breathing, feel the moisture building up inside the bag, and relax as best I can in the position, waiting for light.
It’s colder now. My watch thermometer registers 53 degrees F—chilly, but I’m sustaining myself all right. As maddening as it is for my body to launch into another round of quaking tremors, I’m reassured that my involuntary reflexes are still functioning well. They could as easily have ceased to perform due to the stress and trauma of my accident. How lucky I am that the boulder didn’t cause any significant blood loss. I would have gone into hypovolemic shock, my heart trying to pump an insufficient volume of blood through my body’s piping. It is a meaningless reprieve. There will come a time when my body’s metabolic processes no longer behave according to their operating codes, and then shapeless death will bear me away.
I decide to chip at the rock to help generate better warmth, since there’s not enough work involved in adjusting my leggings. Hacking at the boulder also keeps my mind busy, though I’m no longer trying to make headway. I know the boulder will continue to settle on my arm as I remove more material from it. The area where I chipped the flakes off yesterday has already rotated down onto my right arm, eclipsing the entire night’s progress. But in five minutes, I am warm and lay my multi-tool back on top of the chockstone, pull my rope bag over my head, and sit back once more. In each of the next five cycles, I include a token effort of tapping my knife blade, and sometimes the file blade, into the lopsided stone.
The sky gradually changes from black to white. My ordered regimen of fidgeting and rest has brought me through another night, though I am not thankful for the wearisome repetition of my survival. I thrive on stimulation and action, and aside from the litany of physical duress, my entrapment has brought the additional psychological curse of being unable to fully occupy my mind. I feel engaged at moments, even an hour at a time, but I can’t help dwelling on the monotony of this motionlessness. If dehydration and hypothermia don’t take me in the next couple of days, boredom