A Frosty Reception

“Ice, it’s very cold.

The tundra, quite chilly.

Glaciers, pretty cold as well.

The white, open expanses,

The endless freezing plateaus,

Full of nesting snow doves,

And Arctic foxes,

Frozen in frigid frivolity.”

I step away from my latest masterwork as my sister (sarcasm incarnate) coughs impatiently.

  “Hey, Mr. Raleigh, could you stop writing in that journal for one second and help me sort out the cutlery?”

  “Can’t you just do it? We’ve only got three people staying here anyways, how hard can that be?”

  “One person now, actually. The Jepsons checked out last night, they must have gone to watch the Aurora Borealis, or something like that.”

  “Did they? I must’ve missed that.”

  “You were probably too busy sculpting another one of your precious Snow Sonnets.”

  “Shush Sis, You’re just jealous that I’ll soon be a world renowned poet, while you’ll still be working in this miserable little hotel.”

  “Oh, dream on baby brother.” She grins snidely, one of her many trademarked evil smiles.

  “For God’s sake, I’m twenty-one years old, how many times- “

  “Just set the table will you, for once. Mr. Fredericks will be down shortly, I’m going to have a lie down.” My Sister yawns, as she walks out of the room.

  I still feel flustered, my burning cheek fortunately providing my face with some much needed warmth “If Dad was still here he’d-”

  “Yes, yes, wouldn’t everything be so much more perfect, whoop-de-doo.” My Sister’s voice trails off into the distance, leaving me to heave my weary self into the dining room.

My Sister’s constant ‘babying’ remarks do have a crumb of fact in them; even I have to admit that. Maybe my arrested development is caused by my parent’s disappearance, and the subsequent crap job my Sister (ten years my senior) has done of raising me from a squawky, spotty, 13-year old into a devilishly handsome, literary genius of a 21-year old (come to think of it, maybe she didn’t do a bad job after all). But I digress, my seemingly perpetual adolescent state can also be attributed to me never straying far from the rotting, snow covered, husk of land that had ‘been in our family for generations’, and that my grand-parents, parents, and stuck-up older sister still haven’t deemed fit to let go. Have you ever heard of Grise Fiord, Nunavut? Really? Never? Well, guess what, neither has anyone else! Apart from a handful of miserable folks, who each month decide that being perpetually cold, and seeing some pretty lights in the sky, is well worth the several days of freezing travelling, which, in my opinion, would be much better off spent filling out taxes, doing charity work, or completing several hundred Sudoku’s. Sorry, I got distracted there, it won’t happen again, I promise. The final reason I feel like an angsty, trapped bird in a frozen, Hotel Glaçon (I’ll never forgive Sis for choosing that name), shaped cage is the cold. Fun fact: Our town’s average yearly temperature is 2.3°F. Another (slightly less) fun fact is that the cold is driving me absolutely bloody insane. I shiver constantly, I always feel drowsy, and I feel like I’ve caught frostbite most days! Did you know that our town’s Inuit name means “place that never thaws”? (Whereas the Norwegian translation is ‘pig inlet’, make of that what you will.) I absolutely, absolutely, have to get away from this place soon!

Having finished this mid-story rant, I begin to dutifully set the single table for the mysterious Mr. Fredericks’ breakfast. I say ‘mysterious’ because despite him being here for quite some time, he never seems to want to leave. He just comes downstairs, eats, pays for another night, and then retires upstairs for the rest of the day. And since his arrival, every other guest we’ve had has left after only one night here (Sis blames the crap food, our crap service and the worrying shortage of fresh towels). Now it seems that people can’t even do that, now that the Jepsons have gone M.I.A in the night, without a single indicator of their whereabouts, not even a note in the complaints box. True, I doubt I’ll leave signals of my future whereabouts when I escape this place. My envy of all those quickly departing guests, and the other places which they can all run away to, dissipates as I continue preparing the table. I even feel a tinge of nostalgia as I scan the building’s woodworm-eaten pillars and crumbling paintwork. I guess, having lived in this building for so long, it truly has become a part of me. I’ll be sad to see it go.

Now, would you like me to describe to you the mysterious Mr. Fredericks, as he came down to eat his cold oatmeal? Well, sorry, I went to my room for a nap shortly after setting his table (this drowsiness is nothing to joke about, I assure you). I’ve only ever seen him twice, the first time I was more concerned with my Snow Sonnet number 78 (“Oh, the wintery mountain hills, Oh the tumulus frost of the ages!”) than what he looked like, and the second time I was blind drunk on apple cider. Speaking of blindness, I awoke from my peaceful nap to find myself in complete and total darkness. It had been early morning when I had last been awake, and while I am quite lazy; I don’t usually sleep all the way through the day, especially as large blunt objects would often be thrown in my general direction if the upstairs beds weren’t made by 5pm. Our hallway and dining room lights are also meant to be on constantly. This darkness is obviously due to a power-outage, something that, like cold winds, terrible food, and lack of TV reception, are all facets of life around these parts. Having reached around in the dark for my flashlight, I walk through the eerily bleak silence towards my sister’s room. Strange, I should feel fine right now, yet the darkness feels enveloping, all consuming. Peering in, my flashlight scans the empty room. I make out three rows of Inuktitut symbols, burned, as if by a cattle prod, into the far wall beside my Sister’s bed. ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ, ᐃᑲᔪᖅ and ᐊᓱ.

Despite my better judgment, my head starts to swim with fear regarding the whereabouts of my Sister. The cold makes me feel even more delirious, and I start shivering uncontrollably. I hear chanting through the walls, echoing as if from a dream. The chanting dies down as I stumble, very much confused, into the main hall. I am relieved to still see the Aurora Borealis shining through the large tinted windows, a familiar sight amongst all this mental chaos. I gaze at the spectacle transfixed, as if for the very first time, by its beauty and its power. Trying to calm down, I prop myself up against the spiral staircase’s railing. Why am I so worried? The power’s out and Sis’s not in her room, so what? As my breath reaches a more familiar pace, I notice that the symbols I had seen before are also burnt into the hall’s wooden floor, as well as the carpet of the stairs. Perhaps, I wonder, these symbols are a trail, which are guiding me to Mr. Fredericks. Perhaps he is not as harmless as he seemed. Perhaps he is the cause of this unnatural darkness, and (I realize with renewed panic), the disappearance of my Sister.

Wiping the sweat off my forehead, I climb the steps towards the top floor. My flashlight continues to make out the burnt symbols, as the shapes become larger jagged, and more distorted. They lead, as expected, to Mr. Fredericks’ room. Opening the old Oak door, I am relieved to see that he has vanished as well. Instead, the room is taken up by a giant pile of suitcases and bags, some hanging open, some looking brand new. I am almost certain that some of the cases belonged to previous guests, who I’d seen arrive here, stay for a day or two, and then leave with their bags intact. Stepping into the room, I hear the sound of paint shards crumbling under my feet. I see that the symbols from before had been scratched into the bedroom walls a hundred times over, as If by human fingernails. I back out of the room in shock. None of this had been in his room before! What on earth is happening? The shivering and delirium return, and my head once again begins to ache. The chanting I had heard before reaches a fever pitch. Following these tribal sounds, I begin to hear the cries of my Sister mixed in with the chanting. Reaching the door where the cries are loudest, I am surprised to see the room is where my parents used to sleep. Before they disappeared, before we were forced to turn the house into a hotel, before I wanted to run away, before I felt so helpless, before the darkness, before, before, before, before, before, before ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ I ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ PUT ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ MY ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ HAND ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ON ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ THE ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ DOORKNOB ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ AND ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ ᑭᓇᐅᕕᑦ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅ ᑐᑭᓯᓐᖏᑦᑐᖕ ᐊᖄ ᐊᕙᓂ ᐃᑲᔪᖅ ᐊᓱ ᓱᒥᙶᖅᐱᑦ OPEN.

Free Falling

I had been walking through a dark, smoke-filled corridor for what must have been hours. My breathing remained steady, yet my legs had become tired, as if I had been wading through a peat bog. A laugh began reverberating from deep within the passage, getting louder by the second. As I frantically scanned my surroundings for some kind of escape, the corridor’s walls fell away, revealing that I was now in an empty cell. I started to panic, as the laugh reached an agonizing pitch. A familiar face materialized above me, his expression contorted with malice. My cries dissipated, as a splitting headache brought me back to the real world.

My head still throbbed, and as I cradled my face in my hands, I felt that the left side of my head was covered in dried blood. I was lying on my back, atop what felt like shards of rock. I was surrounded by darkness, yet I could feel the circular walls around me, and could hear the harsh sounds of a storm far above. I deduced I must have fallen into a deep and narrow well. The amount of rubble suggested it had long been disused, fit now only as a breeding ground for mosses and insects. Thoughts and memories ran through my head, but it was a struggle to completely recollect the events from the night before, when I had ran away from that dreadful place. I could remember the violence, the screaming, the panic. The well’s walls were sodden from the storm, with small pools collecting around the base’s perimeter. I thanked God (something I had not done in a long time) that I would at least be able to temporarily quench my thirst while considering an escape.

It was no surprise to me that my cries for help remained unanswered. I tried climbing the sides, fingernails vainly clawing at the weathered brick sides. The day before (at least I assumed it had only been a day) still seemed like a blur, yet I could vividly recall the kitchen, where my brother had been cursing the heavens as my baby sister cried in the corner. He had never been the same since the cursed smallpox took our parents away. He had always been the strongest physically, yet as the house fell apart around us, and our neighbors moved away to greener pastures, he turned inwards, becoming jaded and morose,  and attempting to curtail his feelings of despair with evangelical fervor. I came to view my brother as something inhuman, his occasional drunken rampages merely reinforcing the void that I felt existed between us. Soon, my sister became the only source of human contact I had.

Perhaps what happened the night before my fall was simply a consequence of my neglect, my selfishness. I had consciously let one of my own flesh and blood deteriorate, reaching a level of baseness that I had not thought possible. He had emerged from his quarters, a bottle in one hand, a crucifix in his other. His beard had grown primitive, eyes wild, teeth gnashing in a manner akin to that of a pit bull. He was yelling brutish things, about how nobody, parent, sibling or God, had ever cared or loved him. I approached him with comforting intent, but he lashed at my face with the metal cross, sending me reeling. That was when I was consumed by shock, agony - and the darkness. Clutching my eyes, I stumbled out of the house, running like a man aflame. The sound of my brother’s laughter was the last thing I remembered.

Left only with my thoughts, my body slowly weakening, I realized that my situation was now like that of my brother’s. I, like him, was now trapped, alone and blind, with nothing but the memories of happier times to console me. He must have longed for an outstretched hand, a guiding path, a way out of his indignant state. I drifted into another dream, and once more saw the face of my brother. He appeared as cold as before, but I also noticed weakness and fear. I met his gaze with a smile, and asked for his forgiveness.

Appreciating Newshoots

How much do I appreciate Newshoots?

How much do I appreciate Newshoots?

How much indeed.

To try to picture how much I appreciate Newshoots, imagine a lake. A tranquil lake. A very tranquil lake. A lake not unlike lake Namtso of South-Western China. A cormorant glides overhead, and a yak munches lazily on some marram grass. Your bare feet brush over some coral, as you gaze wide-eyed at the majestic beauty of the Himalayan Mountains that surround you. You bend down to touch the lake’s surface, which has taken on an unusual hue. You are surprised to find that the lake’s salt water has turned into honey. You are about to drink deeply from this golden pool of wisdom and understanding, when something else catches your eye. Who is that mysterious figure floating in a lilac buoyancy ring in the middle of the lake? That’s right, it’s me. You stare into my enticing eyes, and in a brilliant flash of realization you see all that I have acquired, both in my newfound enjoyment and my greater understanding of the many sides of creative writing. You look away from my piercing stare, to find you are no longer at the lake that this text so meticulously depicted. Alas, this honeyed fantasy has reached it’s conclusion, but I hope you learned much on this fictional journey, just as I have learned much at Newshoots.

Until next time,

Tom Barker