Cold. The kind of cold you feel in your bones. Just a few hundred more feet to go. The wind is picking up. I can see the shelter now. My thick black beard is covered with ice and snow but my face is warm. I don’t ever wear a mask. Those are designed for women. Known fact. My beard doesn’t stop really. Line of thick bushy hair goes down from my neck all the way to my belly button where it explodes into a glorious splotch on my nether regions. Say what you will about my lack of “manscaping” or whatever bullshit word you want to make up from being to concerned with yourself. Trimming your pubic hair is for mens whose dicks aren’t big enough to burst forth from their cock afros. I haven’t paid a woman yet who has had a problem with being with me. A real man.
“Why the arctic?” they ask. Simple. Global warming. Sure laugh now at snow farming or icericulture as I call it but you will see. The world will have a shortage of those two things and who will they turn to? Me. Carl Hardstream. There were 6 of us to start. We didn’t know much about cold survival. We learned quick. Or I guess I learned from their mistakes as they died off.
Lesson 1 – Stay covered.
As a joke I took Jim Stevens clothes a locked him outside the prefab shelter we had flown in. He was dead by morning. I was still laughing when I opened the door. Saw his frozen body in a fetal position and it creeped me out a little. The others screamed at me. I screamed back. How would I know? I thought you could insulate yourself with snow. Lesson learned.
Lesson 2 – Killer whales mean business.
Even with a special wetsuit you can only last a few minutes underwater. I was a spotter for Kyle as he dove off the side of the ice shelf to see how deep it went. Seals were everywhere. I thought of an awesome picture. As soon as he came up I grabbed him and tied his legs together and there he was. Flopping around like a seal on the ice. “This will be great” you look just like a seal. I steadied the camera as he screamed to for me to untie him and something about the temperature dropping. All of a sudden the seals scattered from the shore.
“HOLY GOD!! WHALES! UNTIE ME NOW.” He shouted.
“You idiot!” I said. “Whales eat plankton and shit. Plus you are not even in the wa…” Then..fuck me. This wave came out of nowhere like something I have never seen. Out of it was a fucking KILLER WHALE. It was awesome. Right on the shore and swallowed Kyle whole! I couldn’t fucking believe it. It then occurred to me that my friend might be alive in there. I ran to the tent and woke up Peter and grabbed a fish spear. I told Peter to suit up and it was an emergency. He did without question. Kick ass guy that Peter. We got to the shore and I tripped him and tied his legs. No time to hear arguments. He flopped around going crazy.
“Killer whales are attracted to the flopping because you look like a seal!” I yelled to him as I ran away to get distance. “It will come up and swallow you. Like it just did to Kyle. Use the spear and fight your way out once you…” Then two whales came out of the water at once and tore Peter in half. Fucking crazy amount of blood on the ice. Lucky for me I got it all on film. I realized it was too late and went back to base. There was more shouting. Talk of sending me to prison or killing me on the spot but they just didn’t get it. To clear things up I showed them the film. They were horrified.
“See? It was the whales not me.” I said.
Matt lunged at me but I easily fought him off as he was starving because we didn’t ration properly and had been out of food for some time. This is what led me to my final lesson.
Lesson 3 – Ration food.
So Matt has carefully planned every meal for 6 months. More than enough because eventually we could hunt for seal and fish. However, I know how people are when hungry. I took half the rations and hid them and the other half…well just became kind of my midnight snack for a while. Until it was gone. Everyone was furious and demanded to know where I hid the food. See? Exactly as I thought. Trying to get to the rations. They threatened to kill me but I assured them if I was dead they would never find the rations. Regardless Matt and Ted died a few days later of starvation.
I just finished throwing their bodies into the cold dark sea. The bobcat ran out of gas on the way back so I had to walk through this storm for the last half mile. Took me almost an hour. Way too long. I was excited to get to the shelter and the warmth of the heaters and my seemingly endless rations. My gloved hand grabbed the handle. Now the worst part. Unglove hand. Reach into pocket. Pullout keys. Has to be fast or I am screwed. Already hypothermia is setting in and my skin can’t be exposed too long.
Glove off. Hand in pocket. Keys. Where the fuck are the keys? Oh, that’s right. I put them in Teds pocket because mine were full of candy bars I ate on the way to bury them at sea.
Fuck.
Fucking shit ass fuck.
-Carl Hardstream
May 1993