Winter, My Friend

“Gonna go outside, where it’s freaking cold,” Jacob sang to himself, as he’d gotten into the habit of doing lately, “Gotta wear these crappy boots, gotta get some firewood.”

Having put on every layer at his disposal, including the throw from the back of the couch, he trudged from the mud room to the front of the cabin. One brisk breath, and his snot froze in place. He smiled, as he did each time, amused in a juvenile way about rapidly chilled boogers. Squinting in the glare of winter sun on endless snow he made his way carefully to the side of the cabin where someone had dutifully chopped and stacked wood, two rows deep and nearly six feet tall. As was the custom, they had also left the door unlocked, which had saved him from a hypothermic death nearly a month before.

Jacob sang as he tugged the wood loose and arranged it in his arm for carrying, “Thank you, oh thank you, whoever owns this dump, chopping, chopping, chopping all this wooooooooood!” 

As he turned to head back for the door some uneven surface under the snow caused him to wobble and drop his armful of fuel for the fire. With a snort and a little whooping noise he managed to maintain his balance, arms flailed out. Mistakenly, he drew in a big, exasperated breath. The chill stung his chest from deep within and left him coughing and hacking, erratic puff of breath made visible in the cold air.

When he finally calmed his breathing, he looked out across the fifteen or twenty yards of flat towards the trees. Past the first row of sturdy trunks, he could see nothing but shadow. Still, in defiance of reason, he knew something was out there. Something was watching him. He could feel it, feel the steady gaze upon him whenever he ventured outside the humble confines of the cabin. For this reason, and the brutal, stinging cold, he didn’t go outside very often.

“Hello there, new friend. Come to say hello?” He spoke calmly, sweetly even, but projected his voice so as to be heard. Silence answered him, the silence of a world blanketed in snow, a forest devoid of life as every creature with any sense had fled South or was hibernating. Except this thing. Something. A thing. Or nothing.

A gust of wind kicked up delicate flakes of snow, driving some into Jacob’s eyes. He flinched, blinked, and tried to wipe his face with his threadbare mittens. In the midst of this action a blur stole his attention. He stopped, hands held awkwardly up and near his face. Breath starting to come a little heavier, which brought more of the burning cold inside, he scanned the trees, straining his eyes to see through the darkness. Had he really seen something? Was it his imagination, or just a side effect of swatting the snow away from his eyes?

“Did you want to come in? It’s warmer inside. Or, you know, it will be once I get the fire going again. Stupid little pot belly stove, but if you sit right next to it, well, it’s not freezing. We can melt snow and pretend it’s tea. I’m…I’m inviting you in, you see. I’m lonely.” His voice trailed off into the frigid air. His vision blurred as his eyes watered, assaulted now by the dry air. Nothing moved within the shadows, the forest dark and still beneath boughs heavy laden with snow. Jacob hiccupped, and the rush of cold air reminded him why he didn’t come out much and why he should go back inside.

Scurrying and cursing his wild imagination, he gathered up the wood and fumbled his way back around to the door. Shaking and twitching he deposited the wood into the bin and started arranging kindling and paper and wood within the stove. Along the way, he chucked off his mittens, scarf, and the throw. The two sweaters, one his, one found at the foot of the small cot, and the jacket stayed in place, along with the two hats. Half numb fingers fidgeted clumsily with the matches, dropping a dozen on the floor in the process of lighting the fire. His sigh of relief was a fleeting cloud, the cabin still only a few degrees warmer than outside. 

Cursing himself for letting the fire go out while he slept, Jacob sat staring at the fire, willing it to catch faster, grow bigger, provide more than meager heat. Calmed down a bit, he retracted some of his curses. He’d eaten what minimal rations were in the cabin by the end of the first week. He had even practiced better than usual self-discipline and stretched it out. Each day thereafter he’d greeted the day with gradually dimming hope that the air would warm, the snow would thin, that some hope of successfully trekking himself down the mountain would present itself. So far, no such luck. Not only was he increasingly convinced he was too weak and too ill prepared to survive the hike, but to make matters worse he didn’t even know which direction to go. The remote fishing village was somewhere down there, with its peer and gruff but accommodating locals. In all other directions stretched the inestimable wilds of far North Alaska. Also, certain death. Lots of certain death.

Visions of his own popsicle corpse danced before his eyes in stark contrast to the dancing flames taking up residence within the stove. He did his best to shake off the stupor and load as many pieces of wood as he could into the stove before shutting its door. The imprint of the fire flitted across his vision in negative, obscuring the cabin’s interior. That didn’t matter, as there wasn’t much to see. Four walls. Stove. Roughhewn cabinet nailed to the wall. One square window with wavy panes of glass. Three legged stool and matching table, carved from local wood. Simple cot, which looked like Army issue, a taught canvas between metal poles, covered with a lumpy mattress and anemic blanket. Entryway extending from one corner, and a door. Home, freezing home.

“Oooooh, I’m gonna die in the cold, alone in a cabin, a cabin, a cabin…” Jacob lost his thought process, his voice trailing off as he tried to remember what he was going to rhyme with cabin. He tried again, “Oooooh, I’m gonna die in the cold, alone in a cabin, a cabin…this cabin of miiiiine…which isn’t really mine, but it’s a cabiiiiiin!” He snorted at his own lyrics, amused or just verging ever closer to abject delirium. Sleep came before another verse could be sung, a woozy, fragile sleep, the walls of the humble abode wavering in and out of reality. Sand tickled his toes, only to disappear. A soft hand held his with calm reassurance, only to evaporate. Warm sunlight caressed his face, only to flee before winter’s harsh light, then darkness.

In the darkness of night, Jacob startled awake. Silently he cursed himself again for nodding off and leaving the fire to die. Yet, when he brought his attention to focus, the fire lived on within the stove, casing wavering yellow-orange light about the cabin through its slats and holes. He blinked, staring at the stove, confused but appreciative for the warmth. And the smell. Something smelled good. His barely functional brain struggled to make sense of the pot atop the stove, within which something tantalizing was bubbling. He shut his eyes, fully expecting to open them to a cold, dark cabin. The fire remained lit, and the pot remained in place.

The noise of someone clearing their throat to his immediate left made Jacob startle and scramble to his right. As it was a small cabin, he only succeeded in ramming his face into the rough wall and slamming his knee into the firewood bin. After a brief pause, he frantically got hallway up, twisted around, and managed to seat himself at the foot of the cot facing into the center of the room. There, seated calmly on the stool, one leg crossed over the other, was a dapper looking fellow smiling back at him. The man’s round face was creased from the smile and forehead furrowed from widened eyes, eyes that somehow sparkled a light green in the dim light. His hair was black and slicked back, parted down the middle in an old fashioned way. 

“Wh-who the frak are you?” came Jacob’s breathy, stuttered question.

“Why, I am your friend from the woods, of course. You invited me in, my good man.” He said it all with a smile, a look at once warm and menacing, some trace of an accent in the words and inflection, maybe European. His voice was honey rich and filled the cabin, resonant and verging on echoing within Jacob’s mind.

“Wha…but, but…It’s really cold out there.”

His smile turning to an amused grin, the man answered, “Oh, that it is, so I’m most grateful for the invitation to enter. As a token of that appreciation, I brought you this, though I’m not much of a chef.” He motioned to the stove, and Jacob craned his neck to see. Water bubbled around something with bones and meat. The man added, “A rabbit. Or snow hare, I suppose. It’s not much, and just boiled on the stove, but you are wel…”

Before the man could finish, Jacob had tugged on his mittens, fetched the pocket knife from his pocket, and snatched the pot from the stove. Haphazardly he stabbed into the pot, flicking the knife up to his mouth when he successfully speared a morsel. He moaned a little to himself, briefly oblivious to his company and he ate what meat he could in this fashion, then picked up and cleaned each bone, and finally drank the broth.

Coming back to himself, Jacob gingerly placed the pot back on the stove. He slowly and carefully folded and stowed his pocket knife. With the sleeves of his coat he wiped clean his mouth. Trembling hands smoothed back, or attempted to smooth back his unruly hair.  

After allowing an adequate time for Jacob to collect himself, the man asked, “Tell me, friend, how did you come to be in this place?”

“Tour. Plane. Tour plane, and it crashed. In the woods.” Jacob was staring at the stove now, uncomfortable, partially embarrassed at his attack upon the food and mostly confused at the sudden appearance of this man within his solitary confines.

“Oh, that sounds harrowing,” the man said with a tutting noise, “And only you survived?”

“Yep. Yes. Not, you know, not at first. The pilot. He, um, wasn’t, not totally, not entirely dead. B-b-but, then…”

“It’s okay, my friend. I shouldn’t pry. Don’t upset yourself.”

A silence enveloped them, disturbed only by the subtle wisps and crackles within the stove. Both men stared at the flames through the small openings, each deferential to the other. Jacob realized he was breathing heavily and worked to calm himself. After the first day or two in the cabin he’d managed to stop thinking about the crash and about the pilot, restrained in his seat, mumbling incoherently for an hour before falling silent. 

Calmed once again, he found his social graces, asking, “And you? How did, did you come to be here?”

“Ah,” the man exclaimed with a wistful sigh, “turning his gaze up towards the ceiling as if to look through it to the stars above, “I have been here a very long time. So long, I almost forget my coming here. You are here now though, and I am glad.” He patted Jacob on the knee and smiled, his lips parting more this time, the firelight glinting off immaculate teeth. Pointed teeth. 

Eyes wide, Jacob swallowed hard, “Um, did I…you said before…something, something, and that I invited you in?”

The man nodded, “That you did.”

“And…and…and before that, you-you were watching me for d-days? Weeks?”

“Since your arrival, my friend. Eagerly awaiting this chance to meet you, I might add.” He was painfully polite in his manner of speech, the picture of calm and decorum.

“B-but it’s, like, really cold out there, so..”

“Oh, I suppose it is,” the man mused, taking a moment to inspect his nails, his somewhat pointed nails, “but it doesn’t bother me much, certainly not as much as the…loneliness.”

Jacob took a deep breath and braced himself as best he could, wild thoughts bouncing about within his addled brain, “And if I hadn’t invited you, you would have had to remain outside the cabin?”

The man nodded and gazed at Jacob in a kindly way. No, not kindly. Loving? No, that wasn’t right. 

Jacob scanned the walls of the cabin, though he knew he wouldn’t find what he was hoping for, having already inspected every nook of the place, “And I suppose, if there were to have been a religious decoration, like a cross or something, on the walls, then, in that case, also, you would have had to stay outside?”

“You catch on quickly, my friend,” the man answered, his smile growing broader.

“I’m going to die, aren’t I?”

“Oh, my friend,” came the tender, almost comforting reply, “though it is the lot of all mortal men to die, your death is not more imminent now that it was before my arrival. Quite the opposite, your life will be prolonged by my company, I assure you. I have brought you food and will continue to do so, to keep you strong. You needn’t brave the elements for the wood, as I can do that so much more easily than you. No, my friend, you will not die, and I will take such very good care of you.”

The man smiled and again patted Jacob upon the knee. The look was the same, and Jacob recognized it now. He’d seen it before, on his sister’s face, decades ago, when they were both children. A cold Christmas morning, though nowhere near as cold as this time and place, they’d risen with excitement to gifts beneath the tree. Her much anticipated gift was there, unwrapped save for an oversized red bow around its neck. Oh, how she thrilled at the sight, and how she adored that puppy, looking upon it with a gaze of tender affection and care.

Again, Jacob swallowed hard, “And now?”

“And now,” replied the man, his smile finally spreading to its full and menacing width, “a snack.”