Forward. Step by step. Ever forward. Through snow, ice and the cold. Passing trees covered with icicles and lakes frozen over. It was still and silent. It has always been and that is good. I was familiar with it and i wasn't freezing. I know this world and grew accustomed. The frigid air, the slippery ice and the snow I trotted through. I've known it as long as I can remember and was used to it. It was nothing new, nothing dangerous. And so, it wasn't bad, right?
I had come to different sights different the snow white treeline, interrupted by an icy lakes once in a while. I had discovered little villages, where others had lived, who looked like me. I had seen pictures and read books, those had left behind.
These spoke from a different world. One with warmth and blooming flowers. Where trees wore leaves and blossom, despite ice and snow. Where the ground wasn't covered white but green and lakes weren't frozen.
They depicted it as a good world, even better than mine. They adore it, while it lasted, and crave for it, whenever they had to return to the cold. But in all that, they also seemed to grow care- and thoughtless and overall unguarded.
I truly wondered, if all in all this warmth was a good thing. In my opinion it came at a high risk, to not say threatening. Was it worth all the craving for a short time of relief? Additionally when you were never sure how long it would last and how much time would go by until the next one arrived.
They huddled around this fire, which was supposed to warm them, and nonetheless were all so worried as to not let it burn out. At the same time they were not aware of their surroundings as the world around them moved on, ever transforming. As things gone by unseen, characters changing without them and matters falling apart unnoticed. All while they were so focused on their fire.
I didn't have those problems. I knew the cold was there and i knew it was going to stay. There was no need to worry, that it might go away one time. At least it has been here all the years, that I was around and i was still alive. That was a good think, or not?
I was never going to need anything more than the cold for life. I was confident in that. But I knew something else and it was gnawing on me. It was the realization, that just like anybody else I had heard from I had no control over, whether or not it would come to me.
With all my concerns and all my time spent on researching this strange and foreign subject, in the end I was all the same unprepared, when the time had come.
As with all the things that one spends too much thoughts pondering over, it arrived at a time I least expected it. Whereas my mind still orbited the insubstantial subject, the all to real process had already long begone. In the meantime I was in believe of my full supervision over everything regarding me and sharing vows with nobody but myself, that I would not be encountered unguarded by it. But it had since been far too late for any measures to keep some reliability.
In hindsight it is no surprise, that I wasn't even aware of it at the start. The changes were so few and minor, they just escaped my perception as I walked as always in my silent world. Slowly light adjustments were taken. Its careful and weak embrace was comforting and I accepted without asking. It lulled me in and without realize my whole cold world had begun to change.
All yet seemed as familiar as always, regardless I had adapted to the oh so slowly departing cold. I started to creep out of my shell which had been there and protected me for all time. Inch by inch I got a bit bolder, a bit more courageous. No longer was I simply following my ever ongoing path, instead inspecting left and right what else there was to be seen.
And as it was bound do happen, I recognized the signs of warmth. That was the point, when everything collapsed. It hadn't ever been depicted that way. My cold world filled with the well known frost, which had been all around me one moment, was gone the other. Instead a new one was coming over me and it was not at all like the books and pictures.
It was roaring and storming around me, leaving nothing untouched. This wasn't sweat calming warmth. This was terrible and maddening heat! And it was ripping everything i had ever known apart. The trees, before quiet and still, were now all ablaze. Freed from icicles, but aching in pain. Snow and ice, previously covering the ground, were cast away, making place for consuming flames and abandoning a now scorched earth.
And I was in the middle of it all, getting torn apart and turned inside out. All I felt was pain. Struggling to keep my mind together, while the world around me crumbled to the overwhelming force.
Every action was a challenge to overcome. Every move insufferably aching and simply standing up a seemingly impossible act. But I had to proceed, had to go on to escape this hell. There had to be a way to end this, to find someplace safe, without all this agony. There got to be a way I could return to my world.
So I kept on tumbling through this inferno, enduring the ache and trying not to lose my mind over it. Heaving my body from one obstacle to the next one. Desperately crawling and dragging myself along an unknown path, while holding on to a baseless hope of salvation.
It lasted an eternity and within all its madness, I still found from time to time those rare moments of rest. When it slowly settled down, I was again too numb to notice it at first. But as my world had changed, so had I. Noticing the signs way earlier this time, I awaited for yet another new world to come. No longer was there a need or longing for my guarded, cold world and I was well aware, that this one would never return.
So I took in my new surroundings, calm and composed on what I was about to discover. Again it had changed, of course. The trees were no longer ablaze, but now blackened by the flames. Some had crumbled under the sheer force, some still stood tall, but were missing most branches. The ground was covered with ashes, like a miserable try to impose the long gone snow. At last those lakes, who had survived, were darkened by the burned remains of the beforehand encircling environment.
And so I am again on my ever ongoing alternating way through the world. No longer who I once was, but also not craving to be anything old. Here I am, always walking on. Looking left and right, suspicious of every glow I encounter, pondering if it is warmth, heat or again inferno. Trotting along through the ashes to an unknown destination. The one I once was ripped apart and reforged together, creating something new. No longer in need for a protecting shell, but still far from completed.
