Always Winter (again)
Utilising an Pevensy bridge, activated by a small boy holding a toy wolf, the annexation of reality RCW 139 began on the 24th of December 1966.
Bob Fraser couldn't sleep. Perhaps this was the freedom of the dead, no need for mortal things. Mortal things suppose one thing - life, and there was none of it here, not any more. All he had were the ghosts he carried with him in this world of endless snow that grew never deeper nor receeded away with the coming of the sun. A world trapped forever at soltice.
And there was no solace here, merely solitude and cold. A world of little imagination, he had an office because it could never be a home. He was no father, merely an old man haunting his son. No shelter because after Muldoon had stolen everything to open a door to beyond. A door drawn in blood and opened with innocence.
A momentary wetness on Bob's cheek, here there was no darkness and imagination was long gone. He tried to keep that little flame alight and imagine himself a lost world. He couldn't manage it, perhaps nobody could, he wasn't from these parts nor did he carry the burden of grace. That weight didn't lie on his shoulders and a little smile flickered as he thought of Benton in Chicago; free from tragedy and loss. His son couldn't remember what had happened - he never commented about the missing pages in the diary. Buck said he never asked when they were riding the streets of Chicago and Quinn said that the wound had long since scabbed and healed over.
Robert almost slipped on the ice as he imagined himself a dog team. He concentrated hard on the barking of the dogs and their steaming breath as he lay beside them under the stars. He thought about Buck's bitch Opal and his parents' dog from Shanghai - who never came to Canada except as a old memory worn thin with age - and he thought of every dog he ever loved. And they ran - swiftly and almost silently through the dead forest - and Bob lost himself in it, just as the dogs felt only the joy of running with no care for destination.
The motion of the sled almost lulled him to sleep, a solution to all his pain, just the need to keep sledging forever, all eternity measured in the pulsing movement of the dogs keeping time with the rhythm of his heart. Since time stopped here, he never felt like that... It dreamed him of Caroline, lying in the snow and strangely radiant. Her warm and snow-pale flesh was his salvation as they huddled in a part-built igloo and the storm roared above them. He was lost, but had found her, beyond the boundaries of any map, beyond the four corners of the waking world.
They explored themselves in the whiteness, it never truly grew dark here and Robert soon learnt that he couldn't sleep here, not without Caroline at his side. He never quite understood Caroline's world, where the big could grow small and the beastly were rarely base. They would dream together in their warm womb-like cave of snow and by day, he taught her to ride the sled, her body close besides his, her every movement against him was at once a bliss and a torture. He held her close in his arms, but the balance was off, two people on a sled made for one and they collapsed in a drift some way out from Runmukluk.
Catherine began to cry and then shrieked in horror as the moisture left her eye - she thought it was an injury, blood trickling down her face. It was then that Robert realised where they were, somewhere they had crossed the border between Caroline's world and his own. There, Caroline had no need of tears because she knew nothing of loss, or hunger, or the cold of the northern desert. He anchored the sled and swiftly helped her into the sled, wrapping her in everything he could find. Sleeping bags and tent canvas, the old coffee sack with some murderous implement that was abandonned in the snow.
He glanced a moment at his compass and his dogs ran straight and true - as was their nature and their pride - and yet, they couldn't find a path back into their wintery Eden.
Bob Fraser couldn't sleep. Perhaps this was the freedom of the dead, no need for mortal things. Mortal things suppose one thing - life, and there was none of it here, not any more. All he had were the ghosts he carried with him in this world of endless snow that grew never deeper nor receeded away with the coming of the sun. A world trapped forever at soltice.
And there was no solace here, merely solitude and cold. A world of little imagination, he had an office because it could never be a home. He was no father, merely an old man haunting his son. No shelter because after Muldoon had stolen everything to open a door to beyond. A door drawn in blood and opened with innocence.
A momentary wetness on Bob's cheek, here there was no darkness and imagination was long gone. He tried to keep that little flame alight and imagine himself a lost world. He couldn't manage it, perhaps nobody could, he wasn't from these parts nor did he carry the burden of grace. That weight didn't lie on his shoulders and a little smile flickered as he thought of Benton in Chicago; free from tragedy and loss. His son couldn't remember what had happened - he never commented about the missing pages in the diary. Buck said he never asked when they were riding the streets of Chicago and Quinn said that the wound had long since scabbed and healed over.
Robert almost slipped on the ice as he imagined himself a dog team. He concentrated hard on the barking of the dogs and their steaming breath as he lay beside them under the stars. He thought about Buck's bitch Opal and his parents' dog from Shanghai - who never came to Canada except as a old memory worn thin with age - and he thought of every dog he ever loved. And they ran - swiftly and almost silently through the dead forest - and Bob lost himself in it, just as the dogs felt only the joy of running with no care for destination.
The motion of the sled almost lulled him to sleep, a solution to all his pain, just the need to keep sledging forever, all eternity measured in the pulsing movement of the dogs keeping time with the rhythm of his heart. Since time stopped here, he never felt like that... It dreamed him of Caroline, lying in the snow and strangely radiant. Her warm and snow-pale flesh was his salvation as they huddled in a part-built igloo and the storm roared above them. He was lost, but had found her, beyond the boundaries of any map, beyond the four corners of the waking world.
They explored themselves in the whiteness, it never truly grew dark here and Robert soon learnt that he couldn't sleep here, not without Caroline at his side. He never quite understood Caroline's world, where the big could grow small and the beastly were rarely base. They would dream together in their warm womb-like cave of snow and by day, he taught her to ride the sled, her body close besides his, her every movement against him was at once a bliss and a torture. He held her close in his arms, but the balance was off, two people on a sled made for one and they collapsed in a drift some way out from Runmukluk.
Catherine began to cry and then shrieked in horror as the moisture left her eye - she thought it was an injury, blood trickling down her face. It was then that Robert realised where they were, somewhere they had crossed the border between Caroline's world and his own. There, Caroline had no need of tears because she knew nothing of loss, or hunger, or the cold of the northern desert. He anchored the sled and swiftly helped her into the sled, wrapping her in everything he could find. Sleeping bags and tent canvas, the old coffee sack with some murderous implement that was abandonned in the snow.
He glanced a moment at his compass and his dogs ran straight and true - as was their nature and their pride - and yet, they couldn't find a path back into their wintery Eden.