Bear in Hibernation

He had stood there for minutes staring at the empty space by the sidewalk before he felt the staring eyes as people walked past him. With all the snow which had gently sat on his head, shoulders, and silver belt buckle over time he looked more like an old-worn out-slim-scarecrow in a sterile farm than a young-handsome-hiker. The empty space in a busy street was a reminder. It was a bitter sweet nostalgia. He wasn't there anymore. He was in a different time zone far away in a different setting. It was snowing there too.

         "Are you going to get that?" said a girl with a black woolen hat on.

He suddenly moved, as does a bear after being in hibernation for a long time. "No...It's alright." He said while hastily clearing his head and shoulders with his right hand.

         "Are you alright?" She asked.

         "I'm fine." He said. Although his words betrayed no signs of ailment, he had that disoriented look in his eyes.

         "You look frozen. There's a place just around the corner that serves the best coffee and you look like you could use some. You want to go there?" She asked.

He stared at her face. She, with all the features of a human being, didn't interest him; just her facial expression. It was wrinkled a little bit to show that she cared about his health, but was also open enough to imply that everything was alright. Those black eyes went well with her dark hair and the black woolen hat she was wearing and stood out alive surrounded by the heavy-white-snow.

         "Are you coming or not?" She asked with a smile.

         "No. I need to be somewhere." He said and left without waiting for a reaction. He didn't need to be anywhere. He just needed to leave.

He was at his intended destination in no time; home was close. Just a two-bedroom apartment by the block. It was cozy and nice with a little balcony with a neat view of the area from the third floor. He took his jacket off and went to the bathroom to splash some warm water at his frozen face. He looked at the mirror and it reflected a shattered man. It had been broken since a long time ago when he punched it after losing his control.

In the kitchen, there was a plate of meatballs on the table. Most possibly it was something Mary and Joseph, his next door neighbors, had left there. It's been a few months since he had become careless with his life and he could have been seriously hurt or even died had it not been for them. sometimes he would take a bite but he mostly lived on alcohol. "Come on, Roman!" Joseph had told him. "You know that's not the way to go. You'll end up dead on the sidewalk someday if you keep going on like that." But it was alright. He still had a little time before that happened.

He left the meatballs untouched and took his pack of cigarettes but couldn't find the lighter. The house had become a little messy and he didn't bother cleaning it up. He looked on the coffee table and the couch. He searched his desk. It wasn't there. He went through the shelves and even around the law book but still there was no sign of it. Where is the damn lighter?!, he thought. He searched the drawers in the bedroom and on the bed until he finally found it under the king-size bed. It lay down there along with a pink carabiner. He took the lighter and then, with a little pause, the carabiner.

In the living room, he sat on a sofa with his back to the silent TV, facing the cold fireplace. He threw the carabiner on the coffee table in front of him and pulled a cigarette out of the pack and lit it after throwing the pack also on the coffee table beside the carabiner. It was a strange scene that empty spot by the sidewalk and it had been that way for a long time. He was ready to let go and disappear in the smoke again, like he had done for the past few months, but the carabiner brought everything back.

Out on the sidewalk by that spot he remembered months ago, when after going to the nearby coffee house for the first time, how everything was so neat and fine and the steaming coffee being poured in the regular sized cups. And, after their coffees were ready, he remembered how pleasantly it left a warm trail through his throat as he looked at Laura's face with everybody else evaporating in the background. And then, the experience had been so delightful that they made it a ritual; every weekend in the afternoon they would go to the coffee house, then the movies, then dinner and then back home.

It was in repeating this ritual over and over again that they met Chloe. She was just another poor girl of about ten years old roaming the streets, sleeping in that spot with a layer of cardboard underneath and another on top. Roman had said that she wouldn't last like that, but everyone was too happy to want to stain their thoughts with such inconveniences. Each day after the movies when it was dark and cold, they would meet her sitting at her spot. He remembered that one night, it had been so cold and so brutal that Laura decided she wasn't going to let her stay out there and they brought her home. And the next morning, before they knew it she was gone. They didn't see her on her spot or anywhere else ever again and it left a little void at the end of their evenings. It was like a black hole that sucked him in just a few hours ago.

He lit another cigarette and as he played with the lighter in his hand his eyes stopped on the pink-little-worn out-carabiner.
He sat there thinking, reliving the past. He could almost hear the clanking noise the chain of carabiners around her waist made while they were getting ready to leave camp 4. Everest was cold and rough as expected. They were very close to the summit now. A few hours ago they had sat up temporary tents to rest but no one had been able to sleep a wink. All four of them crumpled on the ice. Initially there were five of them but one lost all the toes of his right foot due to frostbite and they had to send him back.

They lay awake, afraid and confused. Deep, Muffled cracking sounds of the glaciers underneath robbed them of rest and they just prayed it wouldn't happen beneath them, at least not while they were there. Later on in the night, they started mounting the summit. The plan was to be at the summit by dawn so they had to leave around midnight.

They walked with their crampons on in a line connected by a rope. Everywhere around was absolute silence and only the torches of the climbers were visible in the dark. No one talked and if they had to, they would whisper. They would plant their feet in the snow but bereft of any force. Thousands of meters of hiking had depleted all their energy.

He lit another cigarette.

He lost her to the death zone. That really high altitude where you have only a few hours to the summit and you are the most exhausted. Exactly where you can really feel a dream coming true, that's where most climbers die. They never sat on the way for fear of exposure and freezing and her knees finally gave in. Supposedly hypoxia also had a part in it. Maybe in that really high altitude of camp number four where no one can sleep because of the pounding headaches caused by the lack of oxygen she failed to properly check her gears, or maybe it was simply chance. So on those final slopes her pink carabiner let go and she disappeared in the dark, too disoriented to even scream.

For him, the summit and the descend was a blur but apparently they directly climbed down. Those who perish in the death zone are forever condemned to be in isolation in the highest cemetery of the world. He kept imagining his love's fresh yet frozen body surrounded by snow and ice while her beautiful blue eyes were wide open and then got lost in them until he drifted away into sleep.

He woke up in the morning. The ashtray on the coffee table was full and the carabiner had slipped off his hand and fallen on the floor. His visions from last night came back to him. In the light of the day and in complete consciousness, Laura's image frozen like that was haunting. Roman shook his head and put the carabiner on the coffee table, then proceeded to his daily routine of misery. He went back to that empty space by the sidewalk. Doing that would definitely make him sad, but he liked it. It was the kind of sadness that would bring Laura back to life again for him and the snow and the coldness reminded him of where he last saw her. That time, however, he sat motionless obsessing over the past for too long until hunger and weakness urged his body to go to sleep.

They had to feed him some warm coffee before he could find the strength to manage himself. He found himself in a coffee house. People were busy not caring about him, drinking their coffees and talking to each other or crept down in their cellphones or laptops. George Stanley, the owner of the coffee house was with him. Once he had found him in that situation he had brought him in to help. He knew Roman from those evenings when he went there with Laura.

Roman looked around. George had sat him at a table by the window and outside it was snowing as always. That morning there weren't that many people there. He had never gone to that coffee house after Laura's death and since then not much had changed. The place seemed to have forgotten all about her and moved on with other people and other stories. People entered and left as they did back then, the only difference was that then all his attention was directed at Laura and now, without the usual focal point, he was lost within the coffee house.

Finally, he gave in and held his head down covering his face with his hands. With his eyes closed he could hear the coffee house still running and he thought whether he was the only one still dwelling on the past. Was it wrong to be this much hung up on the past? But how could he forget her? It wouldn't be fair to abandon her like that, but then, it wouldn't be fair to destroy himself like that either.

         "Are you going to get that?" Someone asked.

Still his hands on his face he thought about how this person's voice was so familiar. It was as if he had heard it before. He held his head up and looked at her. He could recognize those black eyes easily, the ones that so warmly and sincerely had offered to help him yesterday.

         "You haven't touched your coffee in a long time. It must be cold by now. Do you want me change it?"

He didn't answer. Just stared into her eyes.

         "Well...Why don't you stay here and I'll be back in a bit." She said with a smile and left.

He watched her go back behind the counter and talk to George and thought that maybe it wasn't that bad to talk to someone else
about it for a change. Besides, she seemed like a nice girl. But no! it was a sin to think of her after Laura. After all, Laura was still whole somewhere within the ice and she will be forever. Plus, he had gotten so used to the feeling of sadness and depression that a part of him didn't want to lose it. In some respects, it felt good to get sucked down a swamp and embrace it. The depression was his best friend. It was something, or someone, he could confide in.

         "One for you and one for me." She said putting two cups of coffee on the table and then sat in front of him.

         "Are you the girl from before?" Roman asked.

         "Yes, in fact, I am the girl from before."

He took a sip. "Can I ask you something?"

         "Sure."

         "Why did you want to help me?"

         "Well...For one thing, you looked pretty pathetic."          

Roman laughed silently.

         "Also," She continued, "I had a feeling that you were going to stay there until you freeze."

         "I would have, haven't I? I mean not intentionally but, you know."

         "Yeah, I heard about what happened to your wife. I'm sorry."

         "No, it alright. Actually I've been thinking that after six month I should be able to move on, at least a little, but it's too hard."


         "It always is." She said and took a sip.

Roman looked at her. "So what's your name?" He asked sarcastically.

She laughed. "I'm sorry. I know it's none of my business. I'm Emma by the way."

         "So you work here?"

         "Yes, but it must have been after you guys came here because I don't remember you."

         "Yeah, me neither." He sipped from his cup and continued, "But I have to say the coffee was way better back then."

         "Oh really? Maybe I should charge you for these? We'll see how they taste then." She joked and they both laughed.

George stood behind the counter servicing customers. It was a few minutes past since Emma's break was over.

         "Emma should have been back by now. Do you want me to get her?" Asked a waiter.

George looked at them talking by the window. They seemed to be having a good time. It was certainly the most fun Roman had had in a long time. "It's alright. I'll get her customers." He said.

Word Count: 2750