Beach Gravel

It must have been a mottle of sunlight that woke me. I lifted my head and looked around. The sun had just risen above the mountains on the other side of the fjord, and the light was fighting its way through the trees above me. The day before, from the water, the sides of the fjord had looked steep and inaccessible—just raw rock walls with the occasional stand of trees poking out of a rocky ledge. But I’d somehow found a hidden lair. My sleeping spot was nestled in a tiny inlet between sheer walls, on nearly flat ground next to a creek that emptied into the fjord after trickling over a little gravel beach.

I knew the beach well. I’d spent a couple of hours on it the previous night, on my back, shaking in the shallow icy water, small waves lapping over my feet. It was only when the shivering stopped, and it occurred to me that shivering was a sign of being alive, that I found the strength to drag myself up to dry ground. I crawled over the gravel, then bare rock, and when my fingers felt dirt I stopped and closed my eyes. 

Now dry, with hints of warmth on my face, I laid my head back down on the ground, finding a cushion of spruce needles. I stared up at the trees and the clear summer sky. It was perfectly quiet for a while, but then sounds emerged that must have been there the whole time—the wind whispering in the trees, the gurgling of the creek, and the rhythmic rustling of gravel as waves washed against the shore.

I’d gotten to the beach by sea. I knew the water was deadly cold, but when the iceberg had drifted close enough to shore that I could see the outline of a little cove in the darkness, I figured that making a swim for land was better than freezing on the floating ice. The iceberg didn’t let me go easily, though. My pants and shirt were frozen to it, as was my face. So I had to leave my clothes behind, and I think part of my cheek, too.

I turned my head in the direction of some rustling in the trees. A squirrel was being chased by another up a massive tree trunk. I somehow startled them, as they both froze and looked my way. The higher-up squirrel carried a cone in its mouth. The second squirrel took advantage of the distraction I’d created and burst up the tree, prompting the other to drop its prize, which fell to the ground. They both raced back down.

The iceberg had saved my life. I’d been flailing around in the water, my clothes heavy and the ocean sucking out the last of my body’s heat, when I remembered that the fjord was littered with icebergs. The cruise ship had been gently bumping them aside all afternoon as it slowly made its way up toward the glacier at the head of the fjord—our destination for the day. So I stopped flailing and settled into something like swimming, looking for an iceberg. There was no moon—only starlight and the faintest purple hint of the sunset on the horizon, but after a few minutes of swimming I realized it was enough to see shapes, and eventually I encountered a shape that turned into a small iceberg. I abandoned my swimming in favor of desperate thrashing and clawing at the iceberg’s steep, slippery sides, and I managed to wrestle my way onto its top. It wasn’t flat, though, and to keep from sliding off, I lay on my belly, hugging the ice with my arms and legs spread wide.

Thirst finally got me to move from my comfortable spot under the trees. I crawled to the creek. I lay down on the bank, put my face in the cold water, and drank. When I raised my head, I saw that I had company. A little yellow bird—maybe a warbler—stood on the mud directly opposite. It took turns looking at me and dipping its beak into the shallow water. Suddenly, it plunged its entire head in, then furiously shook the water out, making a little shower. When the bird finished its bath and flew away, I made my way on hands and knees to the warmth of the beach, which was flooded in sunlight. At the water’s edge, the glacier came into view, its vertical face rising high above the turquoise water. Icebergs hung about in the water at the foot of the glacier, as if reluctant to start their trip out to the open sea. With my knees in the smooth gravel, I sat back on my heels and looked around, hardly believing it was the same place I’d admired from the remoteness of the ship the day before. But that was a lifetime ago.

Before I found the iceberg, it was just me and the ocean. I’d hit the water hard and gone down deep. In the pitch black I thrashed around in all directions, with no sense of up, and it was only my lungful of air that slowly lifted me to the surface. When I got there, my breath came back slowly rather than in a rush, as if my chest had partially frozen. When my breath finally returned, I had a few seconds to wonder whether my back was broken, but then I became occupied with estimating how long it would take to succumb to the cold.

A loud splash grabbed my attention. I turned too late to see the fish, but it left behind growing circles of waves that I watched until they were absorbed into the gentle chop of the fjord. I picked up a handful of gravel and tossed the pebbles one at a time into the water so I could see more waves. I smiled and laughed to myself in wonder that I could have been struck so stupid with love as to want to leave this behind.

I’d been standing on the tenth deck of the ship. The water was surprisingly far below. I can’t remember whether I screamed as I fell, but I remember the part right before. We each held a glass of champagne. I had my arm around her, and we leaned against the rail at the stern of the ship, looking across the water at the glacier as we steamed away, its frozen face a ghostly blue under the purple-black sky. I turned to her and smiled. Her face was close—close enough to kiss. But her eyes told me no, and she said, “We need to talk.” My stomach flipped and I dropped my glass. She looked down as it shattered on the wooden deck, and I was gone before she looked up.