Freezing point
It’s a revolution, I suppose.
- Imagine Dragons
I see shapes in fire. Clapping hands lauding me for starting it, collapsing turrets, a last dance before the war, the war itself… It begins with one spark, at the right moment and the right wind to pull it further. Consumption merely begets hungry predator flames. Like fire, the people roar. Like fire, we are never satisfied. We are the people of revolution. This is our chant. This is the rhythm we march to. Rebels, they call us.
I am the spark and this is my story.
It begins with snow. Snow that is white, that is pure. Snow that is soft. Wretched snow.
I am an anarchist. I am in exile. I detest snow, yet that is what I have chosen for myself to live amidst. Something to keep me riled up, lest I lose motivation. Something to keep my cold, bitter soul company. They cannot get rid of me that easily, though. My temporary new home is located in a disputed territory on forested foothills. The surveillance at this border is, on most days of the week, sparse. They need as many forces as they can muster to control the unrest I have set in motion back there. I have only a few miles to walk until the resilient pines thin out and give way to the legion of skinnier trees sprouting from the soil of my home. I admit, sometimes when I feel petty and resentful (that is to say quite often), I grab a handful of stones and hurl them one by one at them.
There is one tree that I find myself targeting the most. A silver birch. I do not understand the animosity it incurs within me, but I both detest that tree and sympathise with it in equal measures. Detest because look how it stands that measly piece of bark, it looks so content! It’s the only tree standing right in the middle of the line of control of a country that is suffering, a line I cannot cross. It didn’t help that while driving my jeep here, I hit my head on one of its branches. And I sympathise, because as much as this tree wished, it could not be faulted for having its roots here. I strike it harder nonetheless.
Apart from declaring war on governments and trees, my days are spent haunting the disputed woods. My trusty lighter in hand, I could disappear for days and not return until the fire of the hearth beckons me to return to my lonesome rundown cottage. I do not get lost in the woods either. Like Hansel and Gretel I have become adept at leaving a trail and following it back home. No, it is not the trail of shoeprints on the snow. The consistent snow is always too eager to bury them. So impatient the snow, to have everything conform to it. The trail I follow is of blood. It drips from me constantly. Another reason to despise the snow: the scarlet pouring from my battle scars stands out against its pristine uniformity. The shallow flesh grazing one’s heal. It is the ones inflicted on the mind that gush. It is visions of this that stain the blinding white. Each place the blood drips is imprinted in my mind; one should keep track of such things, especially when blood is the only thing that disrupts this suppression.
I do not think it is normal to obsess over one’s blood, but that doesn’t really matter.
This is why I carry a lighter. In case the snow gets any ideas. I must admit, I do like being able to indulge the arsonist in me. It feels nostalgic, setting things alight. Just like when I set the country ablaze with the anger and resolve of the people.
Today, however, I deviate from my daily routine of rising early from bed and staring despondently out the window. Mainly because I wake up instead on the forest floor, underneath a hospitable fir. The branches above weaving patterns like those I see in the fire. It is worth pondering why this has been getting so frequent recently, me sleepwalking out of doors.
Thank God it didn’t snow on me.
Sigh. The perpetual winter grows tiring, it is never any other season. From being in the midst of everything to being in the midst of … trees. It has lulled me, and I do not appreciate this. The isolation takes its toll as well … hallucinations, unhealthy fixations with trees, hostility toward snow, etc. It was unsettling at first, then I got used to it. Now it is unsettling again.
I melt the icicles dangling from the fir for breakfast.
I do not believe one can live like this much longer. It is absurd how confining and mundane it is - snow and trees, snow and trees, snow and trees.
The questions I’d been avoiding all this time take the opportunity to drop on me like an avalanche. I ignore them.
Snow and trees, snow and trees….
Do I appreciate or curse myself for making it so long without breaking down?
Snow and trees, snow and trees, snow and tree….
Is this my life?
Snow and trees.
Is this how it will be from now on?
I look away to distract myself, my eyes settle on… Snow and trees.
Why am I still here?
I break into sweat. My heart pounds as if to escape.
Have I been asleep this whole time? In this forsaken hole? What was stopping me? Why was I letting it?
Snow and trees, snow and trees, snow…
An acute sense of claustrophobia and self-loathing sets in.
I stand up bolt straight and without stopping to think, break into a run, heading direct for the line of control.
I race towards it yelling, screaming, imagining the streams of blood that must be leaking from me.
I am sick of this numbness and I am desperate enough to do anything to end it. My throat is hoarse from yelling, but I do not stop. My knees buckle under me, yet I manage to gain momentum. The crunch of the snow beneath my feet is deafening, but even more so is the gunfire emitted from the depths of the forest. All bullets are for me. But one is all I need.
And how that one bullet hurts.
It penetrates with fury, nestling into my shoulder. I am not used to the thrust anymore, I stumble smack into a tree (any guesses as to which one?) and collapse. The pain prevents me from losing consciousness immediately but it makes me laugh and cry all at once. I would have broken into tears if the wind hadn’t dried out my eyes. This was what I needed.
Thrill.
Pain. Nay, agony.
Real blood.
The snow soothes the pain considerably ( I confess, it does have its uses) as I find myself, for the second time that day, slumped on the forest floor.
My thoughts must have consumed all the hours because twilight was giving way to darkness when I decide to get up. Clutching a cloth covered with the snow to the gash, I make my way up to the shack . It is mockingly desolate. I clean out the injury, and make use of the lighter to boil water and to light the fireplace. I take in all the details of what has served as my prison.
My plan is simple. It is only a matter of when. In a week if not a few more days when my wound will have grown somewhat tolerable.
Until then, I settle into my bed and gaze out my window as for the millionth time, it begins to snow. It does nothing to soothe the uneasy yearning I have to leave once and for all, though for once, the snow does not seem as sinister a jailer as I had previously known it to be.
Though it is refreshing to know again what it feels like to fervently anticipate the sun, I wish I could have settled into a deep, easy slumber. Instead I am plagued by an image. The eerie image of the forsaken tree: the moonlight falling on its silver trunk, in stark contrast to the inky black-red that was my blood. I wish I hadn’t glanced upon it on my way back. The memory has fixed itself onto the walls of my tortured mind like some sick reminder:
The way its sharp bare branches protruded like fingers, caging the sky betwixt them.
They are entwining themselves around my neck, I can feel their grip tightening.
I know if I yell this time, no bullets will relieve me. The claustrophobia is returning and I cannot breathe…
A sharp shooting pain in my shoulder jolts me awake. It is the lighter, wedged between the bloodied pillow and my wound. I grab ahold of it; I know what I need to do, I cannot afford to go back to sleep. I cannot afford to waste another minute. I must escape. I tear the bed sheet and wrap it as tightly as I can manage around my shoulder, and with a brandy in one hand and the lighter in the other, I take my leave.
I don’t take in how much the temperature has dropped until I notice how fast my teeth are clattering and that I can no longer feel my fingers. It is still snowing, but it is too late to go back inside for more coverings.
But that is of no consequence. I grip the lighter tight. I can allow for my fingers to fall off but not this.
The sky seems to have a particular vendetta against tonight, but I’ve never felt more powerful. The wind whips menacingly against my face. The snowflakes cut like blades into my bare arms. Freezing to death, although highly unfortunate, no longer scares me. I push ahead, resolute.
The journey feels longer this last time, but I am nearly there, clicking the lighter in anticipation.
I see it. Standing tall and silver. Resplendent, against the blizzard proceeding the red dawn. The storm did nothing to it.
I ‘m not quite close enough to see where my blood stained it, but I see flashlights beyond that point, so I have to forego the poetry and instead settle for any nearby tree. Taking a big swig from the bottle I shake over its contents all around. And then I set it alight.
It starts slowly, building up to a crescendo, painting everything orange and gold as it does. It competes with the treetops in height, and soon takes over the sky. I press onward with my infernal army, as far as I can. I am aware of distant bellows from across the border but I do not care, I see shapes in fire. And in that fire I see everything. Clapping hands lauding me for starting it, collapsing turrets, a last dance before the war, the war itself…
I cannot look away, I am intoxicated with its glow and choking on its smoke. I cannot go further, I cannot go anywhere at all, I am losing consciousness again. The resilient tree, my tree, it is the last thing I see. Hands from within the fire reach for me. All I can do is let them, though they do not scald.
“H----’s out!” a voice close to my ear yells, and even in this state of unawareness I do not need to think hard to know that I made it. I may be captive, I may be caught.
But I am out.
Illustrations by
Syed Kashif Ali Mohsin