*I never, ever do two posts in one day like this. I will probably never do it again. I’m sure I’ll lose a few subs as a result. But I took a long snow walk last night in Sirkka, Finland, the little ski resort town we're in, and this story just came to me. I felt so inspired I had to post it! Apologies!
~
He bled into the snow as he walked.
All before him was white, far as the eye could see, until the white road bent sharply to the right; after that was the unknown. He didn’t know where he was, exactly, only that he was somewhere in the Sierras and it was mid-November. It was beyond cold; must have below twenty. The road was wide and flat and steep. Christmasy trees were everywhere around him, their green branches heaped with dollops of snow.
He figured he was somewhere maybe around Tahoe. The trucker had dropped him off this morning after giving him a ride from Prescott, Arizona. And everything had been fine until he’d seen the man. Then everything had changed radically.
It happened an hour ago.
He’d been trudging along minding his own business when he saw the black shape of a man up the road a ways, but off the actual road and a little into the thick forest. Snow must have been two feet thick there, unplowed. This was a little after dusk. He had no idea what he was going to do for shelter. He didn’t have a phone and anyway there was no service here anyway. Besides: Who would he call? Everyone in his life was gone now, literally or metaphorically.
As he slowly grew closer to the man he felt an ominous sensation briefly spark through his body. He tried to always trust his intuition but it was cold and he wasn’t about to turn around. It was probably fine. As he walked closer he zipped up his old Columbia jacket higher until it bumped against his chin. He shivered. Despite having three layers on—his jacket, a thick REI sweatshirt, and a thick long-sleeve shirt—he could not beat the cold. It was uncertain but he felt that he might be up around 8,000 feet or higher.
At last he was closer to the man. The man faced away from him, about thirty feet off the road, near some massive Douglas Fir covered in snow. He swallowed, feeling his heart thudding lightly against his chest.
“Hey,” he said, seeing his warm breath spew out into the cold. It had just started very lightly snowing, tiny icicles dissolving on his jacket. His hands were shoved deeply into his pockets.
The man did not move nor respond. He was standing stock still, facing away. There was three quarters of a moon and it shone down brightly, though the atmosphere was still a little gray and blurry. He sized the man up from behind: Maybe 5’11, wide shoulders, thin frame, big puffy gray jacket, hood.
“Hey,” he said again, “You alright?”
Still nothing. Maybe the guy had earbuds in and couldn’t hear him. He scanned around them looking for a car or a home or something. There was nothing. What would someone be doing standing randomly in the middle of nowhere in the snow and ferocious cold like this, stock still?
He stepped towards the man, perhaps 30 feet away now.
“Hey, look. Are you ok? Do you need help?”
Still nothing.
He felt conflicted but he had to do something. Maybe something was wrong.
He crunched heavily in the snow in his boots, stomping towards the man. The man strangely still faced away from him, as if possessed.
He was only several feet from the man.
“Do you need help, buddy?”
The man spoke finally, but it was low and deep and mumbled. He couldn’t understand what the man said.
“What was that?” he asked.
The man mumbled again. Though he couldn’t understand what the man said, it sounded like six distinct words.
He took two more big steps towards the man, placed his palm on the man’s shoulder, and said, “What was that you—”
It all happened very fast.
The man turned around in that instant and flashed something out extremely fast. Something entered his body, some brutal puncture. He looked down, eyes wide in shock, and saw the jade-green handle of a big knife jutting out of his side. He’d been stabbed. By this man. For no reason.
But before he could react the man suddenly grabbed the handle of the knife and tore the blade back out. His whole body felt an exhale of life pour out of him. He was lightheaded. Blood was spilling out onto his jacket, onto the snow, little spatters of warm red against the soft white.
He looked up slowly from the knife wound to the man. The man held the knife at his side, which was dripping blood onto the snow as well. In the moonlight he saw the man’s piercing blue eyes, his crazed look, hellish. The man said, “The meek shall inherit the Earth.”
Those had been the six words. The meek shall inherit the Earth.
Then the man turned and fled into the forest. He was gone. As if some demon nightmare come to give him a dystopian message of death.
He walked back to the road. He bled onto the snow. Every step hurt like hell, his side aching, the wound profoundly, piercingly painful. He walked in the direction he’d been going before the man. Why not? What did it matter? He was going to die out here. Thirty-nine and a homeless vagabond and no family and he was going to die out here in the snow like an animal.
Twenty minutes into his journey he saw a miracle, the bright distant headlights of a car coming towards him from perhaps a half mile up the road. He saw the headlights from up the road above him around some curves.
He couldn’t believe it.
He stood there, waiting. The whole lower half of his jacket was covered in wet warm blood. Looking back he saw that blood trailed behind him. He felt woozy and very lightheaded. His heart thunked like someone lazily throwing a basketball repeatedly against a close wall. He worried he might pass out.
Then he heard the sound of the car’s engine and not long after that the car rounded the corner and he was bathed in the light of the headlights. The car slowed and pulled over. It was an old red truck with tire chains clinking. The truck stopped and waited for a moment, engine purring, steam rising out of the exhaust, the little truck trembling, the slight clink of the tire chains barely swaying still.
Then the passenger side window rolled down.
The driver was young, mid-twenties, long hair, yellow beanie, mustache. He’d leaned across both seats to open the passenger side window.
“Fucking Christ, man. Fuck happened to you?”
He stepped up closer. “Stabbed. Some crazy fuck in the forest. Took off.”
“Get in. I’ll take you to the hospital. Bout fifteen miles that way.” He pointed back in the way he’d just come from.
He nodded and the driver rolled the passenger window up and unlocked the door and he sat down and they took off. It was warm inside the truck; he had the heat on full blast. The Who was playing on the radio, Won’t Get Fooled Again. The driver turned it down low. He leaned back and sighed and felt nauseous.
~
The driver was scared. He’d been on his way home from seeing Jillian, his girl. What a thing, seeing a man half dead bleeding all over the snow. It seemed surreal. Was this guy nuts or what? What was he doing out here alone? Where was his car? Why had some random guy supposedly stabbed him? The guy didn’t even have a backpack; nothing.
When he looked over he saw blood going everywhere, soaking through the jacket onto his seats.
“Where he’d hit you, man?” the driver asked. He was beginning to panic.
The guy turned his head looking at him. His eyes looked dull and gray and half lifeless. He’d lost a lot of blood. His face looked drained. He looked like a pale ghost.
What an insane thing. The driver had just had sex with his girlfriend and he had classes tomorrow and he planned on going hiking out on the ridge again in the late afternoon and yet here he was with a bleeding stranger in his truck trying to get him to the hospital. He wanted to rush but he couldn’t due to the snow. He couldn’t go any faster; it was too dangerous; too risky.
The guy mumbled something that the driver didn’t catch.
“What?” the driver said, looking back and forth between the white road down the mountain and the man surreally next to him.
The guy looked at him again, dead in his eyes, and, with all his strength, he said, “The meek shall inherit the Earth.”
“What?” the driver said. “What does that mean?”
The guy didn’t respond. He only leaned back and sighed, closing his eyes. The driver kept going. They were getting close. Long minutes ticked by. Silence enveloped them. The white road spooled down below them. The wilderness was thick and venomous along both sides of the road. The driver felt only fear and anxiety and need, the need of getting this stranger to the hospital.
At last he pulled off the main road. Three minutes later he pulled into the hospital. He drove right up to the ER entrance. He knew these roads like the back of his hand. Knew the hospital like the back of his hand. Knew this town. All his life he’d lived here.
He parked and got out and went inside the alerted some nurses and two EMTs. They came out and got the guy out and put him on a gurney. They wheeled him quickly through the entrance and took him into a room down a long hallway.
The driver sat and waited on a bench inside. It was warm there. All he heard were beeping alarms and the sound of shoes squeaking along the linoleum floors. He leaned back, his head against the glass wall. He closed his eyes. He tried to think of his girlfriend. Of school. Of the hike tomorrow. But his mind kept coming back to right now.
Thirty minutes later a doctor came out. He said, “I’m sorry, son. He didn’t make it. Deep puncture wound. Right lung. Lost too much blood.”
The driver nodded slowly, looking bleakly into the middle distance.
“Thanks for letting me know,” the driver said.
“Was he your father? Older brother?”
“No,” the driver said. He looked away. “I didn’t even know his name.”
The doctor looked surprised.
But the driver didn’t want to say anything more. He turned around, still in some sort of shock, and walked away. He heard the doctor saying something, calling after him, saying something about the police, but he just kept walking.
He got into his truck. Blood was everywhere around the passenger seat.
He turned the car on. Pulled out. Got back onto the road. Headed back towards where he’d been going. Home. As he drove, alone in his car amongst the vast white, he said out loud, “The meek shall inherit the Earth.”
What did that mean?
While reading I could clearly see the contrast of red on white. Even the truck was red. I froze in the beginning and then felt the warmth inside the truck. Well done!
Don't apologize! I think this is great. It's very impressive to me that it just fell out of you, though that's how it often goes with good stuff. The parallelism of the declarations is wonderful, and the writing itself, the evocations of the atmosphere, are wonderful. It reminded me of a scene from The Magic Mountain where Hans is wandering in a blizzard and gets down to some existential matters. This had the same feel of isolation and existential disorientation, for me. Have a nice trip!