Cold

Get up.

Get up.

Your ankle hurts but there’s nothing broken. If it is broken then you die. You don’t get to die. Other people die, not you.

Get up.

Now run. That’s what you came here to do now do it, run. You are at least three miles from home. It is at least minus five out here. You are wearing a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. You don’t think you need to run. You think you’re fine and you’ll get home in your own time, or maybe you won’t and that’ll be fine too. You remember hypothermia don’t you? Scotland, out in the woods, soaked to the bones. Trying to roll a cigarette because everything was going to be fine if you only had a cigarette to smoke. Never mind the pounding rain or the fact your hands don’t work anymore. Just roll a damn cigarette. Well if it weren’t for her they’d have found you sat against that tree still holding your sodden rizla packet and dead as the dirt. And that was July, it’s December now. You may think everything will be fine if you stay here a bit longer, if you take your time. That is the cold lying to you. Fire stands there and tells you it’s going to kill you. Cold tells you everything will be fine. Everything will not be fine. The cold is lying. Move.

The pain is not there. The pain is a lie. The pain and the cold are the same thing, they only win if you let them. You are slowing down. Do not slow down. It is dark out here. Nothing but the moon. No lights because there are no people. It you had the breath left to shout nobody would hear you. It’s one in the morning. You’re in the middle of nowhere. There is nobody. This is between something and nothing, between you and the cold. When you’re home you can have a cup of coffee and leave the oven on with the door open. You can be weak when you’ve finished running, you can be in pain when you’ve finished running. You can call yourself an idiot for coming out here. When you’ve finished running.

This is not the worst of it. Everything you have lived through, everything you have seen, it’s not the worst of it. There is trouble coming. Trouble with no sympathy for the weak. And you’ll want to give in then too, you’ll want to fill your pockets with stones and walk into the sea. You won’t get to do that either. It isn’t you that matters. It’s what you can do for them. We will be outnumbered, we will be outgunned. We will be cold and hungry and hurt and grieving and still we won’t get to stop. You will not need to be strong and you will not need to be fast. You will need to be stronger than a human can be, run faster than a human can run. You will need magic on your side, you will need the storms and the seas on your side. Because we will win. Maybe we will pay with every drop of blood in our veins but we will win. It is the way of things that we must win. Humans are not prey, they are the servants of no-one. If we do not win then we are not human. But now, before the war, before you get to see the sun rise on the day we beat them, before you get to see tomorrow’s sun rise, you have to run. This is good practice, for now at least. You have to run.

That must be the first mile down. If the pain carries on increasing at the current rate you should get there well before you black out. Some of the numbness might be fading now. Your mind is clearer. The silhouettes of the trees are definitely trees again now, they are not people or animals or anything in between. You are definitely here and you are definitely running. Still not fast enough. The cold wants you to think this is all a dream, that the ground and the frost is a warm bed. If you lie down there now you will wake up back in your warm bed because this is not real. This is not a dream. If you lie down now you will wake up in the next world. If you slow down now you will not speed up again. It will take some time for the cold to finish you off, but it won’t feel like it. It’ll feel like the briefest moment. It will feel safe, it will feel warm. It will feel right. It is not right. There is no safety that you do not earn. Keep running.

You love the cold. You love the cold because it thinks it can beat you. You love the cold because you know you can beat it. The cold is a warm blanket for you because you’re a stubborn little fucker and you’re scared of comfort and you’re scared of weakness. So you should be. Comfort is another lie, weakness is not an option. Show some of your strength now. With each stride push harder, stretch further, move faster. The moon is right above your house. It is a lamp that warms your skin. The closer you get, the warmer you will feel. Keep running. Watch the line of the future in front of you, see the sine wave your legs make as they flow through the air. It stretches out behind you and before you. That is the path of least resistance, the way the world wants you to move. The wave can lift you, it can take the strain. But you must do as the wave says. Keep running.

It’ll be downhill all the way soon. Blood seems to be flowing properly now. Maybe the feeling in your fingers will come back in a minute. The pain has stopped getting worse. The wave is still there. The moon is still there. I’m not saying you haven’t got yourself in trouble here, but you’ve done stupider things than this. Stuck halfway up a cliff with no ropes or gear and clean out of up, down and sideways. That was stupid. You don’t really think about it but you could very easily have died that day, out in the sun. But you didn’t panic then. Acknowledging that you’re in deep shit isn’t the same as panic. If you had panicked you’d have let go and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. They might never have even found you. They might have found you and assumed that you’d jumped. The fall might not have killed you, you might have just laid there broken on the sand waiting for the tide to come in and finish you off. That was probably stupider than this. That doesn’t mean this wasn’t stupid. That definitely doesn’t mean it’s OK to slow down. But there are precedents. You’ll get home and think no more of it, just like you always do. You won’t be moved to suddenly sort your life out or start achieving things. You’ll sit around waiting for the universe to sort everything out for you. Everything will be as it should be. But all these little things, all the patterns of your life and all that’s happened before will be gone if you don’t keep running. It’s barely even difficult any more. It might even be doing you some good. But it is still very cold out here. You’re still nowhere near anyone who can help. You’re still dead if you stop. You might be able to walk the rest of the way and not freeze to death, but you’re still dead if you stop. Keep running.

If you told her about this do you think she’d be impressed? She might just think you’re an idiot. She’d probably think that you were exaggerating horribly. People don’t die of exposure in rural Wiltshire. The distant lights of Swindon are glowing in the clouds behind you. This is a place where people die of boredom. The elements don’t get a look in. This is recreational fear you’re indulging in. Just stop running now. It can’t be another five hundred yards. Just stop running and walk. If anything you’re too hot. A cup of coffee and a fag when you get home and you’ll be right as rain. Stop running and just walk, you’re being foolish.

Here we are then. That was fun. Same time tomorrow.