You’ve created a vivid dream sequence here. I must state at the outset, I’m not a fan of dream sequences. They’ve always seemed to me to be a elaborate cheat, releasing the writer from any of the usual demands of character, plot, and the establishment of some kind of narrative arc, to say nothing of making sense. In fact, dreams that attempt to make sense are the least successful, in my estimation. Dreams don’t make sense; that’s why we have an entire industry of shamans, tea leaf readers and chicken bone interpreters—otherwise known as psychologists—to probe their depths in an attempt to find meaning.

In my own experience, while dreams can adhere to a narrative, and might contain an internal logic, those remain meaningful only for the first five or ten seconds after awakening. Then they wisp away into the mist leaving a strange residue of fleeting images that don’t mean much in the everyday world. For that reason, I reject outright any attempts to further a plot, particularly turning dream events into plot points.

One aspect of dreams that I can accept is that through them, odd, random symbols can bubble up from the depths of one’s unconscious psyche. Your sequence could fit into this classification, we’re there a larger, real-world context of which it is a part. Your images are undeniably powerful: The unrelenting cold, the unnamed friend, the light, the family, and the futile act of casting a fishing line. For the most part, your prose is up to the task of capturing these images, although by the time I encountered the third “impossible,” I began to wonder if you might want to break out your thesaurus. I realize the word opened the piece, but if there is a metaphorical purpose in using the descriptor again and again, it eluded this reader.

My advice to writers who say they don’t know what to write is “Write anything.” Even if it doesn’t make much sense, you still end up with words where before there was nothing, and words can always be rewritten. Musicians know that finger-exercises are a crucial part of keeping their technique sharp and focused. That’s how I see this type of writing—finger exercises that develop the prose chops you’ll need to turn out the narratives waiting to be written.