The wind was freezing. I could hardly even focus as it roared past me. My face had gone numb a long time ago, and my body was headed in the same direction. The chill tore through my clothes as if I was wearing nothing at all, even though I was layered down from head to toe. As I trudged through the snow, losing sensation and sense all the while, I couldn’t help but think of how I got here. But where was here? Wherever I looked, there was just snow for miles and miles in every direction. But it’s not like I could even see that far though – the blizzard was so strong that I could hardly see 5 feet in front of me, and sometimes I couldn’t see at all. I would just walk forward, slowly, through the thick white fog that was pushing me down and around in every direction, hoping desperately to get to the end. But the end never came. How, oh how, did I get here?
As I fell to my knees again, I started to remember. I was in Trondheim for the winter, enjoying the snow like I did so many years before. From my childhood, I always enjoyed going out past the city to my favorite spot, a secret place I knew about that no one ever went to. It was the perfect place for skiing, full of small hills and flat stretches of land that went on forever. And the best part is, it was just a dozen or so miles from home, so I could go have my fun and be back before the sun went down. As I looked for the keys to my snowmobile, I remember hearing a voice on the TV say that people should stay inside tonight, and that the snow outside could be dangerous. “What’s he talking about?” I thought to myself. “There’s not a cloud in the sky.” With that, I found my keys and headed out the door, not even bothering to turn off the lights. After all, I only expected to be gone a couple of hours.
The memories I was experiencing were interrupted by a loud crash. Looking around the ash-white area, I realized what the sound was. The winds, which were stronger than any I’d ever felt before, had lifted a giant rock into the air and slammed it down in the snow right next to me. As big as the rock was, I barely noticed it before the torrential winds buried it under more snow, blotting it out completely. If that rock had hit my head, it would have surely killed me. Even if it had hit my body, I would’ve been too hurt to continue walking, and so I would die out here in the snow, slowly. The fact that it landed just a few feet away from me, I believe, was my first miracle.
Looking forward, I resolved to continue my journey, seeing now just how perilous it was. Standing still was a death sentence, and turning back was no better. I had to make it out of this hellscape while I could still move. Slowly, I moved my cold, stiff legs forward, one in front of the other, looking down to keep the snow from pelting my eyes. Even though my eyes were safe, the snow still cut my face up as it blew past. It was like I was being assaulted by uncountable frozen shards of glass.
As I walked forward, my stomach began to growl, and my insides felt dry. It was at this point that memories started to flood my mind again. I didn’t eat much that morning. I was never big on lunch, and all I had for breakfast was a roll cake and some coffee, hardly the food of champions. On any other day, such a meal would suffice, but out here in the tundra, my body growing weaker and weaker, I could hear Death calling my name. Still, I continued on, my thoughts becoming more and more focused and desperate with each step. At the same time, the hunger and thirst were making me dizzy.
I also remembered more about how my situation ended up so perilous. Skiing was fun like always, going up and over the hills and speeding through the snow. As the clouds rolled in, though, the fun was over. It began to snow, and at first it wasn’t that bad. I remember scoffing again at the weatherman’s prediction. Within minutes, however, I realized that I was the fool, as the snow became too thick for me to see through. I wasn’t driving very fast, but when I drove over a hill I didn’t see, it knocked me completely off course, and my attempts at circling back just got me more lost. I kept driving in what I thought was the right direction until I ran into a rock I hadn’t seen and was thrown off my snowmobile. When I got back up, I briefly looked for it, and I found it after a short while, but it was too broken to bother with. So, I picked the direction I thought was home and started walking.
Remembering didn’t do much for me, however. After I walked some unknown distance, my legs became too heavy for me to continue. At the same time, the dizziness I felt had evolved into full-blown vertigo. I could stand up straight, and I didn’t even know if I was walking forward, backwards, or in giant circles. The last straw was when I tripped over another rock buried in the snow, falling face first into the ground below. It was cold, but by this point I couldn’t even feel it. I pushed my hands down into the snow and lifted my face out, then sat up slowly, letting out a long sigh. At this point, Death’s calls were like drums beating directly into my ears. As I lost hope, I heard a sound just ahead of me, a sound I hear every day but never pay any mind. I heard the sound of running water. It was faint, but as I listened, it grew clearer and clearer. That glorious sound managed to drown out the drums, giving me back the hope I had lost just minutes before. I stood up, shivering, and dusted the snow of my face and clothes and began to walk forward yet again, imbued with a mysterious energy. After a minute or two of walking, I came upon a small stream. This was my second miracle.
When I saw the stream, I fell to my knees in celebration. I would’ve cried tears of joy, but my tear ducts were frozen shut. I scurried forward to the stream and dipped my hands in, not caring about how cold it was. It burned, but I was so relieved to finally have water that I just didn’t care. I drank until I was full, cold water streaming down my face and arms and soaking into my clothes. Some of the water even froze on my face due to the indescribably cold winds which never stopped blowing. After I was done, I got up and made my last hurrah, determined to get out of the blizzard and into civilization.
As I made my last stand, it seemed like the elements were determined to fight against me. The winds, already howling, picked up even more. They were so strong that at one point I thought they would pick me up and throw me into the wasteland. The water in my clothes was taking its toll too, and I could feel frostbite settling in. My hands, which had been stinging before, were completely numb, and I could hardly bend my fingers. The snow blanketed me wave after wave, beating against me so hard that I fell over and over. Even through all this, I kept forward, experiencing a type of determination I have never had before nor since. And at last, my determination paid off. In the distance, at the edge of the ghostly white tundra, I saw a bustling city. It was full of people and cars and lights of every color. The buildings were taller than any I’d ever seen, and had I been sober minded, I might have asked myself why such a city was built in this desolate land. But, exhausted and freezing, I wasn’t sober minded, and such thoughts were beyond my grasp. I looked up at the blizzard and laughed, thinking I had won. I walked forward for the last time, smiling as much as I could with a frozen face. Before I could get to the city, however, the elements finally got to me. I fell once again, this time onto my stomach, and I had no strength to get back up. I couldn’t even feel my legs. Undaunted, I crawled, dragging myself through the snow for a few more feet.
As I dragged myself, my only thought was reaching town and claiming my victory over the storm. Then, suddenly, my heart sank. The snow blew over my eyes, and as I wiped it away to keep crawling forward, I saw the situation clearly. There was no city in the distance. All there was was the same infinite whiteness that lie behind me. In that moment, my soul was so utterly broken that I could not even cry. I felt no sadness, no desperation, no want to pray. I felt nothing. At that moment, I gave up.
When I woke up, I was no longer in the white expanse. I was in a hospital bed, and there were several strange faces all around me. Most were doctors and nurses, but two faces in particular stood out – an older man and woman. They each must have been at least 60 years old. Before I could even ask who they were, they asked me how I felt, their faces lighting up with joy to see me awake.
I told them I felt fine and asked how I got here – and where was here? The story they told me was my 3rd miracle.
As I lay collapsed in the snow, death in every direction, the wind began to bury me. I was about to become part of the wasteland when the elderly couple noticed me. Their meeting me was happenstance – they were in the tundra to capture footage of the blizzard. It turned out that photography was a hobby of theirs. They had driven about a mile outside of their small town to find a good spot to record and ended up in the same spot as me, just a few dozen feet away from where I was dying. As the husband grabbed the tripod and camera from the back of their van, his wife took a look around, and in the corner of her eye she saw my arm sticking out of the snow, the only part of me that hadn’t yet been interred. She told her husband about it and the two dropped everything to help me, pulling me out of the snow and putting me in the back of the van. They even took their coats off and wrapped me in it before hurriedly putting their equipment in and rushing me over to the hospital in Trondheim. When they found me, hypothermia had already started setting in, and the doctors said I was just minutes from death.
After I heard all this, I tried to sit up and thank the couple, but I was still too weak. They told me to take it easy and started to leave, relief pouring from their faces. Before they left, I asked them for their name and address so that I could properly thank them when I recovered. The next day, I was discharged from the hospital, and the blizzard was long gone. I went to their address and thanked them personally, giving them a new 4K video camera as a token of my gratitude. It was Christmas day now, so they had family over, but they still invited me to eat and celebrate with them. And how could I refuse? As I went to the dining room, they fed me pork ribs and fish and plenty of beer. As we ate and drank, we talked all night about our lives, and I got to be well acquainted with their strangely named town: a small village in Norway called Hell.