To Lance, ice was synonymous to freedom. When he was outside, gliding across the chilled lake, there was nothing in the world that could bother him. All of his problems were left behind, set aside, until he stepped off the silvery ellipse and walked back to reality.
His scarf was hot against his mouth, thick with moisture from his breath. Although the wind bit against his eyes and nipped across his nose, he did not want to go inside. He needed to stay out, in the cold, where it was safe. He spread his arms apart and waved them slightly, pretending he was a bird in the infinity of sky.
Above him, a curtain of dazzling white sparks shone down and illuminated the ice in a serene, almost eerie way. Beyond the silver pool there was only darkness and the distant light from the small cabin. Lance liked the dark; it protected him, shielded him, fathered him.
The cold had bit into Lance’s legs, causing them to become weak, stiff, and to fail him. He turned and felt one of them give beneath him. The ice met with his face and his skin melded into it, freezing against it in a mixture of flesh and ice. Lance attempted to move his face, but the slick blade of the ice had him trapped against it. He began to push up with his gloved hands, but the ice held his flesh there at bay, freezing it into the cold depths.
Lance’s legs were too cold to move. The cold had betrayed him. The harshness of it against his cheek was unbearable, and soon he could feel it no more. The side of his face that had hit the ice was now bonded against it, and his body warmth could not break that bond. He lay there, silently, for his mouth and throat had betrayed him as well. The cold radiated from the ice and grasped his body, clutching it as he was paralyzed.
Lance lay there until the cold made its way to his head. He felt tired, weak, unable to move. The hazy depths of sleep beckoned to him with a scythe like finger, and he tried desperately not to comply. He had heard tales of those who had fallen asleep in the snow and never woken up.
His resistance gave, fog etching into his brain.
Lance drifted into eternal sleep, held prisoner by the very thing that had been his freedom.
