The Warmth of Angels

Icy winds clawed at Marcus Clodius. Though several layers of clothing covered him from head to toe, he was freezing.

He slugged his way through the snow, trekking through a clearing that ran through the woods where a road once was. Whatever remained of it after so many years of dejection lay buried deep beneath the snow.

Almost as soon as Marcus laid down his tracks, the wind covered them with a new layer of snow. It bore against his face. He tried to duck into his coat, but only managed to direct the wind slightly higher on his face.

The snow crunched under the weight of his boots. It covered everything in a dense, white icing. Gray clouds hurled more down from above. Nothing could escape it—even the trunks of the surrounding trees were plastered dull white.

He couldn’t tell how long he’d been walking—he wanted to check the diamond studded watch he wore, but it was buried under all the layers.

The wind blasting in his face kept him from even looking up. He could glance up occasionally, but, besides that, his head was locked downward. He could see nothing more than the white snow beneath him, unchanging, unending, with the wind ceaselessly howling in his ears. That was all there was—the blank, indistinguishable snow and the wind. It was like he was stuck in a single endless moment, his senses muted and numbed by the cold, and nothing but his thoughts as company.

His entire body felt still. His nose, his ears, even his stomach. What bothered him the most, though, were his fingers. They were hard to move, like the blood in them had frozen, and throbbed, red and swollen with pain. He could put his mind off of his toes, his lips, his arms, but the agony in his fingers stuck with him, he couldn’t put his mind off it.

He wanted so badly to feel warmth again. He had half a mind to turn around and go back to the village he’d set off from. He had enough supplies to make the trip.

But no, he told himself, he wasn’t turning back. He was going to make it to Paradise.

Everyone dreamed of a place that had survived the Collapse, but few believed there was one. He had heard stories, though, of a city that still stood. Others dismissed these as nothing but fables. He believed.

It was a place where there were still heated baths, where they still served vintage wines, and the food was dipped in mellifluent sauces that would roll down your chin when you took a bite. A grand metropolis where people still lived like people.

He had spent the past three years travelling from village to village, hunting down anyone who might give him a lead, point him to someone who knew someone who’d met someone who’d been to Paradise. He followed the trail from person to person, until he came to the remote village said to be nearest to the city.

It was there that he had spoken to a man who claimed he had been to Paradise and would gladly point Marcus in the right direction…for a price.

Once he’d stocked up on supplies for the journey—one he’d been told would take no more than two day—Marcus set off.

That had been four days ago. No, there was certainly no turning back now—he was too close to give in. He pressed onward, silently spiting the cold as he went.

Glancing up a little while later, he noticed something off to the side. He stopped and stared—was that what he thought it was? He moved closer through the snow, the wind now blasting his side. It was what he’d thought—a little concrete hut, sitting half-concealed behind some trees. It had windows, which had been boarded up, and a chimney protruding from the roof.

He entered without hesitation—he could finally get out from the wind and it was starting to get dark anyway.

Inside, he leaned against the wall and breathed a euphoric sigh of relief. Still, though he’d escaped the wind, it was cold inside. He muttered curses against the cold under his breath as he dug through his bag, searching for a flashlight.

Shining the light around the room, he saw nothing but a few boards stacked up in the corner. Whoever was here last must’ve left them behind…their loss, he thought and quickly set about piling them up for kindling.

He took out a lighter and tried setting the wood ablaze, but the lighter wouldn’t start.

“Come on, you damn piece of trash, just work,” he pulled off a glove to get a better grip and continued flicking it. “Please, work…come on!” he tried again and again, but still nothing.

“Damn it!” he shouted and hung his head, hunching over. He fingers were already going numb in the frigid air. If he couldn’t get a fire going, he would freeze by the end of the night. He couldn’t give up now. He was so close.

He held the lighter under his shirt, heating it with his body, and tried again to strike a flame. It didn’t come. He tried again and again, and, at last, a slim flame sparked up. He laughed as the flickering, orange wisps danced in his eyes.

He held his hands over the fire. Clothes sat drying beside him on the floor. Next to them, some canned food and frozen bottled water were defrosting.

He sat, back against the wall, and rested his head, taking in the room. It was so incredibly small, he thought. So colorless, just ugly, gray walls and an ugly, gray floor.

Though the fire warmed the front of his body, he could feel the cold at his side, creeping in through cracks in the hut’s wooden door. No matter how he tried, no matter which way he shifted, the icy air crawled at him, making him shudder.

Settling on a position which left only his back exposed, he looked at his watch. “5:58 P.M.”

It felt like time was hardly moving at all—tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough, because tomorrow, he was sure, he would reach it. He would reach Paradise. But tonight, he was stuck here.

He sighed.

His dinner now ready, he sorted through his bag and pulled out some utensils. Usually they got him sideways looks—people didn’t bother with such things at that point. At least he could use them in peace here.

While he ate, he let his mind wander and his eyes glaze over.

He thought back to his life before the Collapse. The days spent racing around the city in his car, whirring past those lowly street-people. Nights of feasting at banquets on every dish fortune could afford. He dedicated those blurry hours between midnight and sunrise to drinking with friend, indulging in artisan pleasures within their private curtain of darkness. As the night went on, everyone would debate over financial markets or mock “the midget.” They’d go on debating football, baseball, soccer, hockey, all the while, paying no mind to the dire reports on T.V.—rising seas, vicious storms, and ravenous fires. They had no time for raging fires—they were raging spirits, and they would rage well into the night until exhaustion overtook them.

Then came the shortages, the droughts, the fighting, the panic, and, finally, the Collapse. It wasn’t that he was blind to the coming calamity, he’d just thought there’d be more warning, some time to prepare before everything fell into chaos. That there would be “a big one,” some ultimate catastrophe that everyone would see coming, everyone could brace for.

Instead, the end was subtle. It was as if changes came overnight, slipping in while people slept. It was nothing major at first—out of control fires would knock some services out of order. But they would come back after a few hours. When his food deliverer told him a few of his items had been out-of-stock—logistical issues with stocking, the delivery-boy said—he began to feel a little nervous. But some of them reappeared in the following weeks, and so he reassured himself that things would get back to normal soon.

Then the exodus began—the city’s workers fled, seeking out better conditions. There were no longer enough garbage collectors to clean the streets, and trash began to build up day after day. His own housekeeper left to go join her family.

When his faucets began to sputter water, shutting off entirely at times, he spent hours on the phone trying to get in contact with someone who could help him, while simultaneously fighting against the increasing periods of cell-service drop out. No matter how often he called, he only ever got automated messages.

At that point, the government had begun legitimately trying to mitigate the crisis. Plans were presented and explained in technical language. There was going to be aid, guaranteed delivery, emergency response teams. Little ever materialized. That which did had little effect.

The moment when he realized that the end had already come was when he, now shopping for himself, had gone to swipe his card at the register, only to have it declined, and his bank wouldn’t pick up the phone.

The next day, when the fires reached the city, engulfing buildings in flames, first responders never arrived.

National leaders had disappeared, the mayor had shot himself after the fire incident. Nobody knew what to do.

And suddenly nobody cared who he was, who Marcus was.

His only want in life was to return to the comforts he’d know in the world before.

As he chewed on a piece of jerky he’d taken out, he closed his eyes and tried to imagine himself eating, instead, a juicy, delicious steak. He missed steak so much. He could almost taste the savory meat—slabs the size of his head served up at high-end restaurants which fine whisky. And yet, his fantasies couldn’t overshadow the cold reality that he was sitting on a hard floor in the middle of nowhere, chewing on a piece of dried out jerky.

This, though, was the last night he would have to be without. Tomorrow, he would return to the civilized world, where he belonged. Tomorrow, he would have a steak, he nodded to himself assuredly. He would have two steaks. Why not? He was going to get his life back—tomorrow was going to be a day for celebration.

His eyes were beginning to droop. Pulling out a blanket, he curled up right by the fire. He needed rest for tomorrow’s march.  

Lying there, he did something he’d never done before—he put his hands together, and he prayed. “God, I’ve never asked you for much before. Please, please, I need to get there. Please, that’s all I’m asking, that’s all I’ll ever ask for. Just do me this one thing, please, and I’ll be forever grateful. Please.” He paused for a moment, then spoke again. “Because, please, again, I need this, and I’m just asking for this one act of kindness. Please, let it be real, please…please…”

As he fell asleep, even laid there right by the fire and wrapped in his blanket, the cold still crept its way across the floor and crawled under the sheets.

The piercing cry of howling wind awoke him, and he groaned to himself. He checked the time. It was 6:30 A.M.

A little while later, he was back on the path he’d been traveling the past few days. Traipsing through the endless expanse of snow, the wind was even harsher today. It screamed around him and made it difficult to move forward.

He tried to shield his face with his arm. It didn’t help. He began choking, the cold air blowing on his face making it hard to breathe. His eyes began tearing up from the cold. He couldn’t see.

Panicked and disoriented, he stumbled about, retreating into the woods where the trees gave him refuge from the wind. Catching his breath, he looked back at the road. He couldn’t keep going out there with the wind in his face, but he couldn’t stop either. Fine then, he’d keep going through the woods.

Looming pillars rose from the ground. They hung over him, their twisted limbs obstructing the sky. Meeting him at every step, they surrounded him like the bark-covered bars of a prison.

As he went passed through them, cursing them with spite, a mound of snow fell onto him.

Blinded, he slipped and landed face first in the snow. Snarling, he struggled to sit up as he shook the frosty, white powder off himself. He punched at the snow, damning and cursing it with all the hate in his heart. He only managed to throw it around. With a final, futile blow, he dammed up the angry rivers raging within him and controlled himself. He needed to be composed, otherwise, he wouldn’t make it in time.

He rose to his feet, brushed off the snow, and trudged on.

As he walked, a steady contempt began to fill him. It was a contempt for everything—for what had become of his life, for everyone who had misled him, for his naivety at thinking he could actually find Paradise. More than anything, for all the damn trees in his way. But…he stopped…were those cut down trees?

A line of tree stumps sat next to a ridge off to his right.

If there were cut down trees, who cut them down? His face lit up. Who else could it be? He’d made it!

He made his way as quickly as he could through the snow toward the ridge. Paradise had to be on the other side. Reaching the summit, he slipped again, and went tumbling down a steep decline, picking up momentum as he went.

When, at last, he came to a stop, he stared up at the white landscape he’d just tumbled down. He wasn’t even upset. Not about the pain in his side, not about the snow down his coat, none of it. Why should he be upset? All he had to do was turn over, he began to turn, and there was Para…

An expanse met him, covered similarly in the white substance which had spread over the slope. Its key feature was that it lacked much of anything. Just open space and the white substance. A barren tundra.

He staggered forward, frantically scanning the quickly darkening plain. “No. No, no, no…no!” he shouted, falling to his knees. “Damn him! Damn him, he lied to me! There’s nothing! Nothing, it’s just ice and snow…just ice and…”

As he was kneeling there, clutching his arms around his chest, the wind came rushing across the open field, cutting him down to the bone. He shivered violently, as the bitter air strangled him.

Fighting back against it, he growled, “Oh, damn you, damn you!” he stared in the direction from which the wind was coming. Then he cast his eyes up to the heavens, “Damn you, God! Why? Why me? Why couldn’t you give me this one thing? I hate you! What kind of fucking sadist are you? Are you happy? Are you happy to see me suffer? Out here in the cold, in the middle of nowhere? What is this? Well, you can fuck yourself—I’m not sorry at all. We should’ve burned it all to the ground, burned it all to hell, every last goddamn tree!”

He panted, forgetting the cold by the rising fire in his stomach.

“And damn all this! This snow, this ice, all this goddamn wind. What have I done to deserve this?”

The wind tore across the tundra again, slicing right through him, past the bone and straight into his soul.

“Oh, what’s even the fucking point of these, if they don’t do anything,” he yelled, looking down at his clothes. “It’s some cruel joke you’re playing, huh?” he glared at the sky, then shifted his paranoid gaze back at the woods, “Well, to hell with you! There’s nothing but the cold, nothing!”

He fingers were throbbing like mad—the aching wouldn’t stop…he just wanted it to stop.

“You must think this is funny, so funny, picking on me. I’ll show you. You think you can just screw me like this? I’ll show you,” he tossed off his backpack, tore off his gloves and jacket, pulled off his boots and his lower layers. Words seethed from him as he marched forward toward the horizon, now fully exposed, “How’s this then? And damn all of you,” he shot a look at the clothes, “you did nothing, nothing for me, you’re worthless!” All that remained on him was a diamond studded watch.

“Happy now? Is this what you wanted,” he shouted at the sky, “I’m miserable, is that what you wanted to hear?” The wind was ravaging him. It blasted against his entire body—there was no longer any specific pain in his fingers, only a singular, searing, burning pain across his entire body.

“I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I asked so little, so little, so little, little, little, little,” his words were breaking into sobs.

He flung his head to the sky again and screamed, “I’ll kill you! I swear, I’ll tear you to pieces! I’m gonna make you fucking bow to me, make you bow! I’ll crush you, crush, crush! I’m, I’m…I’ll…You, you’ll see what I’ll do to you, it…it’ll…it…” His knees went weak underneath him. After a few more belabored steps, he collapsed, falling twisted in the snow.”

There he lay, an arm stretched out. On it, a diamond studded watch.

Within a short while, just as the roaring winds began to finally die down, Marcus Clodius, lying in the snow, at last felt growing over him the warmth of angels.