The Frost Beneath

In the frigid, frostbitten tundra of the north, at altitudes far higher than most non-natives can respirate, far beyond the elusive suburban nightmares and effervescent hinterland dreams, lies a single, solemn, lonesome flower. Dainty, delicate, fragile like porcelain china, and flushed in an icy blush like a Russian doll. One flower in the cataclysmically frozen abyss, locked, alone, in its dance at the ends of the earth. Untouched by the grimy, groping hands of man, forever pure in eternal frost. Every day, the same as it always was, unchangingly and achingly stagnant. Desperately boresome, ferociously provincial, but the alternative is some far greater evil, no? And flowers can voice no protest, even if they wanted to.

One pungent day, when the winds were harsh and biting and the sun disappeared into some more tranquil lands, a man found himself trudging through the permafrost, his boots sinking into the cottony snow beneath his hiking boots, leaving muddy tracks in the pearly white. He trekked in a state of complete silence, save for some gruff breaths during particularly steep inclines. His knapsack had long since been abandoned, the supplies he had come with, though little to begin with, dwindled to one stale, rock-solid crust of bread in his parka pocket which he had all but forgotten about as he kept his mittened hands attached to his hiking sticks at all times. To this day, it is unknown the man’s original whereabouts, simply that he had come from a place far away from this tundra but, at some point, desired to, or was forced to leave. His livelihood was waning, the emptiness of his stomach climbing to extreme depths, and the jaded creases in his eyes showing histories better left in the suburbia he likely migrated from. Yet with the meager burst of stepping one foot forward at a time, he refused to give up hope, or cry, and if he did, each tear froze in the cold far before they could emerge from his waterlines.

On one hazy morning - or was it an afternoon? - the day was especially tempestuous, with the mountain’s airs howling songs of the eternally barbaric and the sheer ferocity of the weather reminding the man of his professorial days, when he would recite soliloquies of Machiavelli after teaching a long day of herbology classes, and hear it resound through the echoing hallways when the rest of the perfunctory university students had left to their respective abodes. Some called it harmonious acoustics (of which the school had spent an egregiously taxing sum of their budget on). The man, however, called it a discordant cacophony in which he could do little other than obey, obliging as a slave to the sound and to the university in which his salary remained non-existent.

On this hazy morning, while the man was resisting battalions of sharp winds that threatened to offset his balance, he heard a faint, operatic sound in the distance. A soprano aria that seemed familiar and utterly unlike anything he had heard before in his life all at the same time. Perhaps he was hallucinating from a combination of the glacial temperament of the tundra and his dire lack of sustenance, save for sandwiches made of snow. In his almost manic lucidity, though he was far too bone-exhausted to be manic, he stumbled toward the symphonic diaphony, an undying urge to see with his own eyes who, or what, was creating it.

When he had walked some miles to locate the music, and I know not how long, he seemed to have reached the source as it had grown louder and louder in a hair-raising crescendo, with more and more gusto until a great climax and - he collapsed into blackness onto the frost beneath.

When the man awoke from his slumber, sleeping more, it seemed, than ever he had in his life, he looked up to release that the aria he had heard those hours - or was it days? - ago had ceased. As he scrambled to his feet to find the lilting melody once more, he noticed something quite peculiar indeed at the head of his worn-out hiking boots. One single, solemn flower - a freesia, he knew from his herbology days - glowing and growing minuscule icicles from the cold.

It was in this moment that the man had come to an understanding. He could foretell henceforth that his life would not progress much longer, his hypothermic bones failing him and his stomach withering as the seconds passed. However, he had come to realize that he no longer cared. For here in the silence of the tundra, save for the flurries and the sometimes bellowing winds, he was at peace with his life, with his histories, and with himself.

As the years went on, the man was never again seen in the world of his past and in some melancholic acceptance, that world went on in his absence and seldom cared much of where he had gone, save for a makeshift funeral in which his dearest friends and the students of which had remembered him each placed a smooth stone at his empty grave in his memory. The rocks were few, however the gesture was sure to have been appreciated, if only he had been alive to see it.

As for the man himself, some go looking for him on occasion as those who care to listen, though there are few, have turned the remnants of his soul into a legend of sorts. He has since never been found by those brave mortals who attempted, however if you venture into the depths of a frostbitten tundra up north, far past the bustling cities of hell, you will find not one, but two flowers - freesias - companions, settled peacefully into the frost beneath.