Out of the Cold

The icy air of the Montreal winter beats against my skin, a stark contrast to the warm car. It is almost sunset and close to minus fifteen degrees, supposed to feel like minus twenty-five with wind chill. My thin sweater and leggings do not do much to block the frigid air, but I am wearing heavy boots and thick mittens. Hypothermia, not frostbite, that is my goal. 

An easy death. 

I have heard that hypothermia is one of the better ways to go. You supposedly grow number and more disoriented until eventually losing consciousness. I walk over to the bridge and look down at the water below. Chunks of ice are floating in the water, and I cannot see the bottom. I am looking for shallow water, so I can submerge and then lie back in water up to my shoulders, then wait for the cold to consume me. 

I get off the bridge and continue along the edges of the path. The snow is deeper here, over the tops of my boots and nearly up to my knees. It reminds me of one of my favourite songs: “Winter,” by Tori Amos. The piano melody plays in my head as I start humming. 

“I run off, where the drifts get deeper,

Sleeping Beauty trips me with a frown,

I hear a voice, you must learn to stand up

For yourself, ‘cause I can’t always be around.” 

I remember singing this song with my father as he played the guitar. Although the lyrics then seemed to be about a father-daughter relationship, I can see now how they relate to my situation. Although I do not hold onto any romantic notions of dying; I know my frozen body will be far from a Sleeping Beauty. And the last two lines could be my father’s words, but just as easily my older brother’s. Both were fiercely protective, but Tony also had confidence in my ability to fight my battles. 

I turn off the path and look down the snowy slope through the trees through the water, scanning for a path down that is not too steep. I tentatively step through the snow, sliding a little, holding the trees to guide me. My balance is quite good; on family ski trips my brother and I would usually go off on our own to the black diamonds while our parents took their time. Keep an eye on your sister, they would always tell him, but Tony was a bigger daredevil than me. He would warn me about tricky patches in the snow, then turn and go through the jumps himself at breakneck speed. 

Snowy Zoe, my family would call me; winter had always been my favourite season. None of them could understand why I could ski, hike, or play in the snow for hours, and still be the first one to ask them to turn up the furnace. I shiver and wonder if I should have brought my jacket, at least while I look for a spot. No, I tell myself. If anything, it is better to speed up the process before I even get in the water. I peel off my sweater and toss it behind me, continuing through the trees in only my black tank top and leggings.

My grandma said I looked pretty in dark colours, with my fair complexion. I suppose it is a striking contrast, black clothes against pale skin and white snow. I will be paler still, with my heart no longer pumping warm blood through my veins. While vanity is not my concern, I hope my body is not too disfigured, so that the first responders are not traumatized. They are trained to deal with these situations, but I still worry. I am looking for a place to die away from unsuspecting people and families, but where I will still be found before decay sets in. 

In a different world, I could have become a paramedic myself. I could have done a two-year college program and been saving lives for four years by now, instead of finishing my undergrad and applying to graduate programs. Instead of applying to medical schools two years in a row and not receiving a single interview, eventually becoming too disheartened to keep trying. It is a classic tale of wasted potential, a girl who believed she was smart, who cracked under the pressure, like a frozen lake under the weight of footsteps. 

I pause, tired from hiking through the snow. I look down at the fluffy white snowdrifts. I could just lie down and rest a while before going on… Oh, the irony. I’m about to sleep forever and still feel like a rest on the way. But the sun is going down and the sky looks beautiful right now. I sink down into the snow and look up at the sunset. They say people with major depressive disorder see colours to be less vibrant, so I wonder if those pink and orange clouds would be even more breathtaking if I were healthy. 

In a way, depression and hypothermia are not so different. I never thought of depression as a feeling so much as a lack of feeling, just as cold just a lack of heat. Rather than the presence of sadness, I saw it as a lack of joy and energy, like my mind was a barren wasteland without any warmth, light, or life force. It is fitting, I suppose, that soon my body will meet the same fate as my mind. Even laying here in the cold snow I can feel the heat leaving my body. 

The snowdrifts and snow-covered branches around me look like clouds. White clouds below, pink clouds above… I wonder if this is what heaven is supposed to look like. If what they say is true, though, suicide is a sin and I am damned to hell. It seems cruel, that an omnipotent God would look at a person in despair, who believes that things cannot get worse, and sends them to a place of more pain, of unimaginable suffering. Not that I believe. I don’t expect to go to heaven or hell, simply cease to be. For me that is enough. 

I notice my body is involuntarily shaking, the cold seeping through the thin cotton of my clothing. I have to get up. I get up and continue stumbling through the trees, my eyes on the water up ahead. I struggle to stay standing, the Tori Amos song playing in my head. I hear a voice: you must learn to stand up, for yourself, ‘cause I can’t always be around.

“When you gonna make up your mind?

When you gonna love you as much as I do?” 

Those first two lines of the chorus would no doubt be my mother. She always said she wished I would see what she saw when she looked at me, instead of the flaws I always fixated on. But I see myself clearly, not through her rose-coloured lenses. I know that she will be devastated by losing me, by my taking my own life. Perhaps once she sees that I am willing to cause my family this much pain to relieve my own, she will understand that I am not a good person after all. 

Or Nico. He never understood how I hated myself so much. Then again, I could have said the same about him. It is strange, how two people so self-destructive in their own ways could complete each other so perfectly. I knew I loved him but did not know just how much until he was gone, just this gnawing ache in my chest that remained. No. I was the one who ended it, and now I must live with the consequences of my decision. I owe him that much. 

I finally reach the water, still shivering despite the exertion of hiking through snow. The ground slopes, the water gradually getting deeper. I glance around to make sure there is no one in sight. I am truly alone. I am doing this. The cold is hard to bear now, but once I am in the icy water, it will be over soon. 

This is my last chance to change my mind. I could turn back here, climb back up the slope, get in the warm car, and drive home, safe. No. How many times have I stood on that bridge, fantasizing about jumping off and feeling the cold water pull me under? How many times have I contemplated the various methods, before deciding on this route? If you are going to be dead for the rest of time, you can afford to wait a day and see if things feel any better tomorrow. Now it is my therapist’s words in my head. I took her advice before, now, I only see one solution. 

I wade in, frigid water seeping through my leggings and into my boots, but I keep going, until the water is up to my waist and my lower body feels chilled to the bone. Taking a deep breath, I bend my knees and submerge myself entirely. Cold washes over my entire body and I force myself to stay under for a second. I surface, gasping, the skin on my upper body tingling when exposed to the air. The air feels warm, in comparison to the almost burning cold of the water, but I fight the urge to get out. I stumble backward and sit down, leaning back against the slope with water up to my shoulders like I am in a bathtub. Now it is only a matter of time. 

My heart is thumping; I imagine my system struggling to pump warm blood through my rapidly cooling body. In contrast, my toes feel numb, cold water soaking the inside of my boots. My fingers are also beginning to lose sensation, and I wonder how long before frostbite sets in. Not that it matters; if I am dead, it will not matter that my extremities have lost function. My body is shaking; the chill of the water seeping into me to the core. I must be strong. This is the hardest part; it will not be long until the biting cold fades to numbness. 

But it is just so cold. I need to think of something to distract myself. I could hum the song that was going through my head, but I am shaking so hard the melody will not come out. I try to sing it in my head, but that is not the same. I could tell myself a story. But all I can seem to think about is the cold. Instead, I focus on my breathing. Breathe in for five seconds. Breathe out for five seconds. The seconds seem shorter now that my body is fighting to keep me alive. But it will get easier soon. It has to. 

I heard somewhere that moving your body makes you feel warmer but lose heat faster. My limbs are too numb to execute fine movements, but I make myself bob up and down in the water. The water feels colder away from my body, like cool waves washing over me. The more I think about the sensation, the less I feel my skin at all. It is hard to say where the water ends and my body begins. My skin feels like it is swelling like a balloon, but when I look down, my limbs are still the same size. 

I decide to sing the lyrics to that song in my head, just once, then I will be closer to the end. Just once, then I will let my mind wander. How did it start again? I run off, where the drifts get deeper… No. That was the second half of the verse. Mirror, mirror, where’s the crystal palace? Is that the first verse or the second? I decide I no longer care about the lyrics in the correct order. 

Mirror, mirror, where’s the crystal palace? 

But I can only see myself…

A crystal palace. That is something more pleasant to think about. I lean back, imagining the snow and ice all around me is a palace of ice, like in a fairy tale. I can somehow hear the sound of the sunlight bouncing off the ice walls. Is that even possible? It is in my head, so it must be real, in some way. I keep taking my shallow breaths, the sound growing quieter and the icy lake all around me growing darker. 

It is strange, the colours all around me seem more muted. Perhaps because the sun has gone down, but even the shadows are more gray than dark. It is hard to tell if I am sitting still; I see my body sitting upright in the water, but a strange sense of vertigo makes me feel like I am slipping deeper into the icy water. I brace my hands on the snow and try to push myself up, but my limbs feel numb. I turn and dig my fingers into the snow, pulling myself out of the water and up the snowy hill. Surely it is okay if I get out of the water now… I cannot feel my arms and legs touching the snow, but I can see myself climbing higher… then I collapse. 

Out of the water is no better. Any minute now the water soaking my clothes and hair will freeze solid. Is it frozen already? My skin feels completely numb; I cannot tell if it is liquid or solid water touching me. I see my lower half is still submerged. I cannot stay halfway like this; I should be either in or out of the water. Out of the water, God, please, get me out of here, it is so cold. I numbly push myself up the hill, digging through the snow with my hands and knees. After what seems like hours, or maybe seconds, I look back and see that my body is now on dry snow a few metres from the water. I lay my head back down on the snow to rest. 

Zoe! Shit, somebody come help! Get a blanket over her…

It’s Tony. Of course he’s come to rescue me. I reach out and feel his strong arms around me, picking me up, carrying me back to safety. I try to say his name but no sound comes out. Then I blink and look around, realizing I am alone in the trees. It is not Tony’s arm I am holding but the branch of a tree; my numb hands could not tell the difference between a frigid branch and a human body. 

How did the ambulance find me already? I can see the red and blue lights flashing, and hear the sound of sirens. I must be lying on a stretcher, with paramedics standing around me. I try to turn my head to the side, but I just see snow and trees; I have fallen over and am lying flat on my back in the snow. But I am certain I saw the lights. I squeeze my eyes shut and open them, blobs of colour dotting my vision. If I look far ahead, I do see lights, but from the city. And the siren… that incessant buzzing in my head grows, and shifts into the instrumental bridge of the Tori Amos song. I lay back. The music in my head is much more pleasant than the wailing of sirens.

“When you gonna make up your mind?

‘Cause things are gonna change so fast,

All the white horses have gone ahead.” 

White horses. They are all around me, galloping up the slope. I cling to the back of one as it carries me away, my fingers deep in its mane, or maybe snow, it is hard to tell. No. I am barely moving at all, crawling up the hill, my arms and legs digging through the snow, my clothes and body soaked. 

I jerk backward with a gasp. My skin is burning. My flesh has already turned black. Has it? When I look closer, it is just the black fabric of my leggings. I tear my leggings off, then my shirt, then roll my body in the snow, trying to cool my skin. The pain subsides, and I see my clothes are gone, just my bare skin on pure, soft, white. A bed of white pillows. This was all a dream. I am safe with him. 

Nico rolls over to face me, and I am looking into his deep brown eyes. “Hey.” He trails his fingers over my neck and shoulders. I feel his warmth as he leans in to kiss me, and I reach out my arms to pull him closer, but my arms close over nothing. He is not here. He was never here. I am completely alone. The hurt and longing washes over me like an earthquake; right now, I don’t want to be alone, I just want him here, to hold me. I feel like weeping, but my body is too cold to produce tears. 

The numbness has spread from my extremities, down my limbs, throughout my body, and I no longer feel where I am. From the ground where I lay, everything is in a haze; I can only see myself from a distance: a fragile human frame laying motionless in fetal position on the snow. All I know is that whatever is happening, I did this to myself. 

It is so dark. I feel like I have fallen headfirst into a dark pit. 

It is so bright. Light is flooding my vision.