DESCENT

WINTER
He thought.  
No, he imagined:

We’re fucked.  
Started too late, overestimated ourselves, underestimated the storm.
Thought we could manage, going down, we thought it’s early winter, 
we’ll manage, there are shelters on the trail, there’s the hut below.
Then white-out, cold, wet, wind.  I don’t know.
We’re fucked.

They took turns in the lead.  
They couldn’t see:  the two behind could barely make out the form in front of them, the other saw nothing past his, or her, outstretched arm.    
They floundered, staggered, stumbled off the trail if they were ever on it, too long since they knew if they were as they fought through wind-lashed snow, wind that cut through every layer, burned their faces.  
They were below timberline; that cut the wind, but not much, and branches hit them, whipped ice at them.  
When they stepped off what they thought was the trail they were thigh-deep, hip-deep in crusted, wet snow.
Ice axes, poles, snowshoes were little if any help.
  There was no color:  evergreens were black, white snow blurred, became gray.  With less and less light.


What was the picture—.
Paul thought:
New Testament thing—blind leading the blind, in this case tied together 
(joined? lashed?) with nylon and carabiners.

The lead saw nothing until it was there.  
Paul thought:
This isn’t sight, it’s discovery, surprise, feel.  
How stupid is that.  Not stupid:  absurd.  This whole thing.

What is she thinking?  
Both of them thought.

Both of them.  
One of them, maybe both thought:  
That’s the point.  
We’re both fucked, and she’s fucked.

Or did one think:  
We fucked and now we are fucked and that’s the point.  
We’re fucked.  
We all fucked.  
In sequence.  That’s the point.

It’s what happened.  
He was with her, then I was.  I am.  Not him.  
The thought was exhausting:  everything was exhausting.  
Jaime thought.  
Then tried to stop shivering.

Or.

Then we weren’t.  I wasn’t, he was.  
No wondering about guilt.  Not so much rage as despair.  
Which could easily turn.

Jaime fell, they stopped.  
Ellie said:  
We have to go back up.  Find the lean-to.  Dig in, wait this out.  
She said.  
Made sense.

They had shovels, ice-axes, snowshoes, the tent, enough in the packs to make a wall, close themselves off.  
If they could find it.  Retrace their descent.

He can’t keep going.  
She thought:  
He can’t.  

If they could find the lean-to, get him into a dry sleeping bag.  
There’d be a chance.

Nobody said it.  
They stumbled for half an hour, maybe, who knew, and then she saw it, a small lean-to, mostly buried by the storm but they could get the snow off the wooden platform if they worked fast.
Before they were as bad off as he.

They cleared a spot, got Jaime inside, rigged the packs and the tent around him for shelter, took his clothes off and put him in a sleeping bag.  
They struggled to get him in the bag, he was barely conscious. 
Wide enough for all three.  Nobody pointed it out.

Paul said:  
There’s some butter—Jaime should—

I know.  You’re right.  
She rubbed his body, fed him as much of the butter as she could, hoped it wasn’t an old wives’ tale.  Worked faster.

She dug out a pile of wood from under the platform.   
They worked, near panic but they fought that off.  
He waited, then said:
We have to get in the bag.  With him.  
He thought:  
On him.  
She said nothing.

Or he imagined she’d have said nothing.

No point in talking—no breath to waste.  No sound but storm, shovel on snow, breath.  
He took a saw and struggled waist-deep in the snow looking for dead branches. She wrapped herself around Jaime while Paul tore pages from the guide book for kindling, got a fire going, broke up the smallest logs with an ice-ax.  
Kept it going:  the wind was against him but he fought it.

Wide enough for all three.  Neither pointed it out.

Then they were done.  Couldn’t manage more.  
He said:  
We waited too long.
They rigged a makeshift wall, they managed that,
took off their clothes, got in, Jaime in the middle 
between their bodies, as they’d been taught.  
Pressed hard and naked against him.

Warm bodies.  
He thought.

He couldn’t tell if the other man was conscious.
He tried not to imagine Ellie, it was too dark to see much.  
They both knew.  Remembered.  
He thought:  
What the other’s body is like.  
He thought:  
She’s thinking how do we save him if that is even thinking.    
He thought:  
Love.  Instinct.  
Whichever’s stronger. 
 He didn’t know and there was no point wondering.

She said:  
We can’t sleep   We need to be awake, both of us, in case.  He’s shivering.  That’s supposed to be good, right?

He heard fear.  He said:  
Maybe.  I don’t know.

She said:  
It creates warmth.  Some.  For a while.

O.k. 
 He thought: 
This absurdity asks more than I have.

How long does it take?

What.

To warm him up.

He thought:  
To save him.  
He said:  
I don’t know.  A couple of hours.  I don’t know.

You’re right.  I think.

He heard Ellie breathe in, she did that sometimes before she laughed.

We have to talk.  We can’t sleep. 
She breathed in.  
We have to talk.  About something.

His arms went around Jaime until he was holding her arms.  
Maybe it was his imagination only there was sensation, warmth, flesh. 
The body wants what it needs.  Or the other way around. 

She said:
About something.

He thought:
Algebra. 
To counteract the body.  Though it never worked for him.
He couldn’t remember if he ever told her the technique.
God knows she could make him need it.  
He remembered.

She said:  
Hey.  Please, talk.

Algebra.  
He said.  

What?  
He felt her breathe in, tighten her grip on the body between them. 
 Oh, Jesus.  
She said:  
Don’t.

He thought:  
What the fuck do you expect.  
He said: 
Sorry.  
And was angry after he said it.

She said:  
I just…Is he--

We’re doing what we should.  Right?

They listened to the storm above them, around them.  
He got out of the sleeping bag long enough to keep the fire going.  
For all the good it does.

What?

He didn’t know he’d said it out loud.  
He said:  
The fire.  

She breathed, maybe she laughed, barely.
She said:  
What do we do now we’re happy?

What?

I don’t know what made me think of that.  
We used to…We thought we didn’t mean it.

I guess not.  
He said.  
He thought: 
 Fuck you, Ellie.

Jaime shivered less between them.  
She reached out, pressed herself against him harder, reached out to pull 
Paul’s arms tighter.  
She said:  
C’mon, c’mon, warm up.  Wake up.  We have to get him to wake up.  
Over and over, different words, same pleas.

Paul imagined the conversation they didn’t have.

He would say:  
You thought this was good idea, a climb with the three of us.  
Very mature.  Sophisticated.  These things happen.  
It seemed like a good idea, to explain that to me here.  
With the two of you.
He’d have said.

She’d have said:
If I’d said we wouldn’t go—

I’d have been suspicious?  
I wasn’t.  Suspicious.  Not a clue.

I can’t do this.  Not now.

Seems like you can.

Her breath was louder.  
She pulled tighter around Jaime, wrapped her legs around him, 
hooked her ankles all the way behind Paul’s knees.  
All of them, all three rolled, he could feel Jaime’s breathing, fast and what he supposed was shallow.
He was underneath now, both of them pressed against him.
Breathing.
All that flesh.  
The body wants what it thinks it wants, no matter that the mind knows it can’t.  
 The bodily reaction was embarrassing, pressed into Jaime.  
You’d think a guy could get control.

In his head, she tells him:  
I had this idea, that up here, a Romantic thing –

Fuck that.
He thought.

That what we do or don’t do—

In reality.

Down there it’s something; here it isn’t important.

Then they were silent.  
Jaime was warmer, he could feel it, out of danger, 
in the morning they’d get a fire going, he and Ellie were good at that.  
Fire.

He imagined.

FALL


They
lay in a
narrow bunk as 
far from the cold as they
could.  This isn’t at all what I
 pictured.  Some ménage.  Ellie closed
her eyes, she’d do that when she tried not 
to laugh.  He said: Mine was much better, a lurid 
fantasy lo those years past.  He couldn’t see much in
in the dark hut and there was Jaime’s body between them.  
He’d started shivering, passed out on the bunk, maybe Bourbon 
or dope or reaction to the altitude, they didn’t know, but she said it,
 She said it—Hypothermia, we should…He said You’re right so he lit the
rusty stove in the shelter and they stripped him and themselves, got
him under the sleeping bags between them so their bodies could
work.  Jaime wasn’t reacting, she said He needs more heat…
They’d climbed in the winter, they knew it was what they 
should do.  He couldn’t see, only her eyes, but his
body felt her warmth and he was grateful this
wasn’t twenty, thirty years earlier when
the body would have wanted more
than his body did. Still. Now 
it was not so obvious
to her how he
was--


She
startled him--
We should talk, we can’t sleep.  
She laughed.  Say something.  He felt
her body, touch, scent, maybe it was in his head
but there was flesh and the body wants what it needs.
Or is it the other way around.  Did she remember any of it?
She spoke again:  C’mon, return the ball, can’t you, once in a way?
Their code, from years ago and he was angry, pulled the body between
them roughly.  Jaime still shivered.  He thought:  What the fuck, reached
past the body between them, remembered how her shoulder felt, said:  
Remember all those times the three of us were up here?  We were
crazy, the more weather, the more snow, the better, we could
handle it, anything, the three of us. Young heat.
She said: Don’t.
He loosened his grip on her shoulder.  
You said we should talk.
I wonder how would this have been 
then, if we’d been caught out on a climb, maybe
that time the three of us wanted to show how mature 
we were, beyond outdated ideas, jealousy, who belonged 
with whom, how it didn’t matter that it was a triangle—sorry about
the cliché, but what 
else was 
it? 

He 
was out 
of breath by
the time he stopped.

Hardly
a surprise Jaime 
fell out, we can pretend
we’re young.
But the body don’t lie.
My fantasy—

Stop.  She said.

He said: My fantasy of 
this ménage, back then? It’s
comical, lurid, we’re desperate, we 
have Jaime between us, we need more 
body heat so I have an idea, convenient, I
admit, I think if we fuck—

 Paul– 

If we fuck we’ll 
warm him up.  That 
would be a ménage—a 
triangle. I thought, or might
have thought back then.  

He imagined her reaching out to pull him closer in their tangle of bodies.
Lying there he imagined them, all those years ago, the struggle to keep Jaime from slipping away, imagined her reaction to his proposal.  
No.  Proposition.

Down there it’s something; here it isn’t important.
She might have said.

He thought:  
Fucking life and death.  This fits her somehow.
He thought.  
The bodily reaction was embarrassing.  
You’d think a guy could get control.
Only why bother.
Maybe that was the idea—both of them could push against the freezing man, not fucking exactly, certainly not making love, not even really sex,
but the prick wanted what it wanted, as if it were a foreign body,
if they could use that to warm Jaime, it didn’t mean…

We can’t sleep.  She said.

No.  I know.

Safe in the hut.














SPRING

HE    HIM    HER

HE:
If we
had, in
reality, if
we’d been forced—

HER:
When?

HE:
In the
years past,
when we were—

HER:
We haven’t been
that, together,
for ages.

HE:
But
then, in
ages past,
had we been
forced by a storm
to choose, agape for--

HER:
HIM?

HE:
For 
HIM. Who
else?  Don’t tell
me you wouldn’t have
saved him—what’s the line?

HER:
From hell. And
from death.
Imbecile!
Death.

HE:
So
I’d have
 tempted you to
save HIM from death.

HER:
Me.  For HIM, we
would, you no
doubt on
top.



HE:
For
HIM, on
top, or under,
the position would--

HER:
How droll.  You think that HER
from the long ago would have
been willing, eager for some
reason to forget all, for
a chance to 
fuck you.

HE:
Save
HIM. A
selfless act—

HER:
For HIM, with you, innocently
in your judgement, from
which I’d have been
absolved? Duty,
not-- 

HE:
I
don’t
assume--

HER:
Fuck you—
to save
HIM.

HE:
HIM.

HER:
Go to
hell.

HE:
You
pretend
it was all gone,
no remnant, no past.

HER:
Go to
hell.

HE:
I
would
do it.  For
you.  Or HIM.

HER:
Fuck your
self?

HE:
Won’t
work, not
enough heat..

HER:
You forget how
I hated it
when…

HE:
When?

HER:
You held it over me, ignored
anything unconnected to
you.  Only in this
hypothetical--

HE:
This
absurdity.

HER:
In this fantasy I am,
as ever, caught
in your
misery.


HE:
Don’t
make my misery
solitary.  There were,
there are still three of us.
HE.  HIM.  HER.
Don’t
ignore fact.

HER:
I know.
I don’t.

Pause.  They have nothing left to add.
Then:
HIM stretches, both feel it.

HER:
He’s awake. Thank
you God.  It
is safe.

HE:
Safe?

HER:
To sleep.

HE:
I
won’t.

HER:
No.

HE:
There’s
HIM between,
and you, of course.

HER:
Of course.

HE:
You
were off
a minute ago.
It’s not fuck you—

HER:
All right, I know.
So.  Fuck
life.

HE:
At
this place
we are all humanity.

HER:
God forbid.  You
really should—

HE:
I 
should.

HER:
We are alike.  HE.
HIM. HER.

HE:
We
are old?
Waits.
Ah—a grin
at long fucking last.
Amused by our senescence..

HER:
Funny how we are all humanity.
In our descent.

HE:
The most dangerous part
of a climb.  Three
tied together.
(Prods HIM.)

HER:
They don’t move.


HE:
Only
a stage
direction.
More’s the pity.

They don’t move.