When they're their they automatically end up in my mouth, so it came as no surprise to me that I'd start sucking away on my one strip of bangs in the corner of my mouth when I had forced my self into a corner. What was surprising was when after a couple of minutes flapping against my head, the clump that had been in my mouth froze solid. I bent it to see how frozen it had become.
It broke off.
I had come to the North of Scandinavia during winter to find something. I had this vision of coming over Bottenvik in some truck and, on some abandoned road in the middle of nowhere, I would get dropped and I would go down to some river knee deep in snow and I would strip off my shirt in the cold and take a drink of water from that river. It would be snowing. Partial visibility. The cold would be biting, but in my confidence, in my strength, I would be impervious. I would feel the void. I would feel the calm and the present. I would hear the sound that doesn't touch the eardrum. I would be enjoying the flavour of organic, raw life�no added spices, artificial flavours. I would take out my swiss army knife. I would open my side. I would feel the burn and the blood and I would take out the small bottle of Czech snapps given to me by my ex. I would pour a small amount into the palm of my hand, cupped. And I would rub it in, thereby eliminating the last bit of remanence of weakness in my system and continue fresh. Without taint.
It doesn't work like this most of the time.
It was dark and very cold on the other side of the border. My lateness-of-the-hour activities were somehow rewarded by a quick ride out of Oulu. Made it into Lule� just before dark. If only I could get a ride to the 94 highway I could maybe squeak a ride with someone coming back from the city. Another 3 hours. But it was 2 in the afternoon so possible.
Around 4pm I was unofficially fucked. But got a ride to the main highway and then a quick lift to the 94. It was dark. Cold. Traffic was light. I had nowhere to go but straight ahead into the dark. A man picked me up. Took me 20km to the worst spot I've ever been placed. 90km limit. No lights anywhere. Weak shoulder. In Sweden�bitchy-bitchy Sweden. Traffc was very low and was only going to get lower. The same for the temperature. So I waited for an hour trying to pick up a lift in the dark. And when my hair broke off I decided that I would have to start walking til I got to a better spot. Or�I was going to die.
Temperature was down to minus 10. And I walked for a long time. But what really happened out there in the dark cold abyss? Where exactly was I and what was going on upstairs in my head? I thought of the Aurora Borealis but the clouds were too many and the light too few. I thought about the knife, the booze and the strength that everything was going to turn out OK, but at this point I was afraid I was going to die. So I left the clothes on and I went for the knife, but the cold was so biting when I took my gloves off�my hands went numb so quickly and I was so tired. The temperature hit minus 20. So I just kept walking and thinking. I looked out over the flat plains and saw silhouettes of hills, trees and clouds. Lights of houses tens of kilometres away. I stopped and listened at one point and I heard nothing. No ambient noise. No cars, no hum of life. Nothing. I was all alone in the cold, dark road networks of the arctic circle and I was afraid I was going to die and I didn't know what to do. SO I just kept looking for something on the horizon�something.
But what really happened out there on that stretch of highway? What really happened out there?