So, I’ve been thinking for a while about writing this post given my current situation but here we go. Take it as a sort of a will.
The thing is that since I was small I’ve always been attracted by snow. I didn’t know why I had such an interest but it was probably because I grew up in a hot part of Europe, a small place where the hot air from the sea would make sure I would see it only once every eight or nine years. Maybe it was the gentle feeling of snowflakes or the eerie silence enveloping the environment, but I was small and for matters I’m going to explain now I found out it wasn’t the case. Maybe I could recall a faint call from it, as if the snow hid something under its curtain of fog and silence beyond which something wanted to reach out to me, and I could remind this feeling every time the blizzard wind howled. At the time I hid this occurrence so much that I myself forgot about it, firstly because I didn’t want to be perceived as crazy and secondly since there was no snow for years where I used to live.
Recounting everything so far, I think it all went downhill from this summer. I always hated the heat and the humidity and I happen to study at a university located in a big city. Not a big deal in general if you were to study with air conditioning, but the university building was planned in a very strange way, so that the studying area was located in a semi open area with the study rooms on top of it. This of course led to a massive cloud of sweat and heated air coming from above and forced down towards the studying area. It was in July, and the first time that city had registered a temperature of 45°C. It was in that environment that a first signal of something going wrong sprouted: I could feel for the first time actual pain, as if my skin was being torn apart from the inside out with the cloud of sweat acting like grease, even enveloping my eyes in what felt like a layer of mucus. Before knowing what I know now I would have thought it to be an issue with my skin but I could recall it as a strange feeling, like a generalized feeling of emotional discomfort. At the time it went away soon after I switched to studying from home for the exams so I discarded it almost immediately.
Then this new semester came. As you could guess from above, my love for cold weather led me to choose a place in Northern Europe for this winter - specifically the Baltics - for I wanted to experience the true cold. I simply craved temperatures under the dozens of degrees and the simple thought of it filled me with melancholy, as if I were to see a group of friends I hadn’t seen in forever.
Now I will not bore you with a detailed recount of my experience in my university, for I say it was as fun and as good as you could imagine, with new friends to meet and an interesting set of lessons, all done in the city of Tallinn and the beautiful scenarios of the Baltic Sea. Estonia really is as underrated as they say, and yet here’s when I saw it.
Generally when I visit new places I tend to walk long distances, ending up seeing all sorts of stuff, either famous or not. That trip was no different: it was November, known as the start of the snowy season there together with their dreaded short days; and I went to visit the Linnahall, an abandoned and gigantic Soviet Sport Hall.
It was 4 in the afternoon and snow had already been covering the entire city for days, although that was the first weekend I could walk around and enjoy it. It was -11°C and I had never felt that happy before.
I was walking around the hall, trying to see its surroundings overcome by the tall trees you can find in the Nordics and I wanted to take some photos of them in the middle of what was becoming a blizzard when a gust of cold wind forced to close my eyes. When I opened them I saw it. I don’t know how to describe it easily but from what I could see beyond the nearby trees, some ten meters from me, was a creature. It was half the height of the trees and had a humanoid shape standing on a curved back, whose pointy vertebrae could be seen piercing his skin, which was made of a thin, dirt white skin. It’s hands were a handful of claws, with each being as long as his thigh. But the moment I saw its face was the one which doomed me. It had icy, blue eyes, and they were huge, staring inside my soul and emitting from them a howling sound. The blizzard was getting increasingly worse as if that creature was the cause of it, and yet I didn’t move at first: That feeling of melancholy hit me in a strong way, it was as if I had discovered someone I had always been desperately in love with, and its howling felt like a charming, feminine voice calling me, wanting me to get closer. And so I did.
I went closer and closer and the creature did the same. I don’t know why but for a faint moment it reminded me of the mermaids of the Odyssey, calling out Odysseus with a soothing voice towards its doom, but I didn’t care. I felt as if I wanted to be comforted by the evils of the world, I wanted to be hug by it, cry on his shoulders, and be lost in its blue eyes. A small part of me could see the moving claws slowly moving ahead to the line of my stomach and a mouth filled with decaying teeth opening, as if it was going to swallow my head, yet I was overwhelmed by contrasting emotions. The stench of death coming from it had become now a fruity smell, like a smell of peaches, and I simply walked closer and closer to this mermaid until I was less than a meter away from it, ready to accept whatever it wanted to do with me.
In that moment, the climax of what in advance was probably going to be my death, it however simply run away, probably startled by the faint sounds of an approaching car. I tried to run and catch him but after a few seconds it reached the nearby sea and jumped like a dolphin into it, disappearing in the cold sea. The blizzard calmed down and I was left there, alone.
That was what broke me. From that day on I cried every night, thinking of those comforting blue eyes caressing the essence of my soul. I started drawing small circles everywhere, first on my notes and then on the snow, spending hours drawing bigger and bigger circles with my feet on empty, snowy fields. Maybe it was desperation or a way to calm myself down but I had became obsessed with it, yet I had no way of knowing how to meet it again. I became depressed very quickly but it was only the beginning.
Things fell apart when I went back in my hometown for Christmas. I felt uneasy everywhere I walked: it was 10°C outside but felt like 60. Walking around became a hassle as I would sweat even with barely a shirt on. Then I started feeling hot even at home: removing my blankets and keeping air conditioning to maximum cold wasn’t enough and I ended up sleeping less and less, even ending up sticking my head inside my freezer for hours in a row.
This was combined with a strange sensation. I started hating the surrounding environment and every place without even a hint of snow left me with a sense of anger and disgust, and it was as if I was seeing a place filled with trash and dead animals.
The psychological struggle was also topped with physical one: every passing day my skin has been devastated by more and more rashes and blisters, leaving me with an unending itch in all parts of my body.
I was going insane and it had been barely a couple of weeks. I simply didn’t want to eat or drink and in my state and I was quickly turning into a husk of my former self; however that’s when I figured out the theory, for the colder the climate the less my symptoms would be and most likely the likelihood of meeting the mermaid would increase too. I instinctively felt as if the absence of this mermaid was the direct cause of all those problems.
All those things combined led me to do the impossible, led by the compulsive urge to run to the cold. I have checked the weather in Europe and all the available flights and without telling anyone I took a flight and went as far north as I could. I had no clue as to whether I would meet it but I felt I had no choice.
I simply knew that I had to. The options were limited since the coldest places on earth were in Russia and expensive to reach, but I was able to make up for it by studying the incoming cold waves of winter and finding a good place with temporary extreme cold. I have severed all my contacts and blocked all calls as explaining this sudden travel to anyone would be as crazy as telling about the creature.
That’s how I’m here. The city of Luleå in Sweden has been not only a hidden jem of this nation but also the only place where I have been sleeping well in a while and studying the areas of cold weather I have pinpointed an isolated pine forest near the Finnish border. The temperature there will be -47°C and I’ve never felt better and more excited about this journey. Ever since I left the -38 in the city my mood has only improved.
I’ve had the thought of writing this while filling with gas a truck I’ve rented to reach that position. It has been a blast laughing with the owner of the gas station seeing me with light socks and a bath costume, but I still think he wouldn’t believe me if I told him I have been keeping my windows open for this entire trip.
To be fair it I must also point out that it has become increasingly difficult to use my phone as it is feeling increasingly hot on my hand, causing often new blisters to appear and often I have to cover my hands in snow to use it. I’ve noticed my skin is also starting to turn blue for the cold but at this point I don’t care anymore. By the time I post this I will be back on track for the final stretch of my journey and as soon as I will reach the point showed in my GPS I am sure I will meet the mermaid again as long as I keep the sea in sight.
It will be either him or hypothermia.
Wish me luck.