Ascent

Cold came down and wrapped her arms around his chest. She bore down like an icy anaconda and no amount of shivering would loosen her coil. She found her way into the smallest gaps in his Gore-Tex jacket and bib.

It was a mere two miles to the next base camp but the angle of ascent made for slow going. Sean didn't want to stop though every fiber of his body begged him to. One foot in front of the other. Left foot forward, reposition right trekking pole. Right foot forward, reposition left trekking pole. Left foot forward. . .

The rhythm and the repetition. Mechanical, rote maneuvers. A kind of mindless concentration on the task at hand, but the higher mind asks why, challenges, balks at his sadistic, fascist commitment to marching ever forward.

Cold was lonely that afternoon. Notoriously moody, habitually clingy, she grabbed hold of Chad the way Calypso clung to her sailors. Ever like the vampire, she understood that her desire, if satiated, would mean the death of her beloved but an obsession like this does not bend to reason, is not bound by empathy.

To prayer then, calling upon the unseen in the midst of all this wilderness. Praying for second wind, for strength, for warmth, for help. Praying against doubt, against fatigue, against the cold.

And then the thoughts, what is prayer? He knows stories of men who've died on this ascent. He's willing to bet that they all prayed for earthly salvation but to what end? And what of the prayers of their friends back at base camp, back at the hotel, back at home? And what of those who do not pray who have made it to the summit? How does God choose between prayers? How does God let pass those who do not pray?

And yes, this is what he needs - questions that occupy the mind, drawing resources away from nerve endings processing new experiences of cold.

Is there a place where prayer is more at home? In a church, certainly, but that is to be expected. Here, prayer looms as large as the sheer cliff faces and at the same time, amid the vast, endless isolation, prayer feels feeble, small, hopelessly irrelevant. Prayer is thought, breath, spirit. The mountain is granite and glacier and shifty, unpredictable snow pack. His ice pick has heft and weight, tangible, hard, usable evidence of its existence. Prayer is metaphysical - beyond the physical. But he would not do this climb without it.

The arsenal that Cold has at her disposal is considerable. They ranged from tiny, spear-like probes to thick, foggy blankets, acres across. She unleashed them down upon his vulnerabilities - a strange sort of seduction. She whispered into his ear through his ear band. She lapped at his neck, ran her fingers down the small of his back. Through a technique not unlike osmosis, she infused herself through his pant legs. She picked her way through the micro-tangles of his wool underpants - tedious work but she was nothing if not patient and persistent.

The ice pack was deep and powdery. His snow shoes did their best to distribute his weight but they were of little use on a gradient as steep as this. The combination of the wide footprint and the slope of the ascent kept his ankle cocked at an odd, painful angle. His calves were burning half from the strain, half from the lack of oxygen. He could feel his toe nails digging into the calloused flesh surrounding them, rubbing them raw.

His left foot hit an unexpectedly slick icy patch. The traction gave way and Chad found himself face-down in the snow. He was cushioned by the loose pack but Cold, ever vigilant, seized upon this opportunity. She sent little soldiers of snow down between the gap between his goggles and his face mask. Ice turned to water and it was a clever device. The first bits soaked into his face mask making it harder to breathe and pressed the cold down upon his cheeks.