The rush of the icy wind biting me as it flows into my open windows like a liquid
pinch, intent on awaking me from my nightmare. This is my adventure. I didn't save anyone's life. I wasn't noble. I didn't even care about those things anymore, the dreams of my youth, about to spill out from my body to spoil the purity of the snow I was hastily defiling. I was prepared to die.
As always, it was during my angsty teenage years. They were tough years. Besides the typical teenage drama, there was my blossoming sexuality which made me feel isolated from my peers, made me feel alone and unwanted, like a freak. Weird with a beard. I had hit rock bottom, and for just one second, I thought, I wonder if anyone would care if I died.
This is not the type of thought one thinks idly. It only took a brief moment for it to come to me, but it became impossible to shake. I really began to question it, and I realized that yes, people would miss me. People would cry, and they would attend my funeral and feel so bad about how I was treated and how hard my life had been. I craved that sympathy, that sadness that no one ever gave to me, because I kept up a valiant exterior that could never make anyone realize my interior insecurities. The framework of machismo and confidence that maintained my facade had grown weak, and the day I asked myself if anyone would care if I died, I realized that it was finally collapsing. I was ready to kill myself.
It was a cold winter day midway through my Junior year of High School. The snow from the previous few days had melted off of the roads, cutting a solid black line through the peaceful rolling hills of white that surrounded my rural environment. These hills were the hills I knew from my youth, but in one night they could turn into something completely different from what they were the day before with just a little dusting of snow. How can I live in a world where even those tangible things I think I know one day turn out to be something else entirely the next?
The sheer entropy of the universe had placed its weight on my shoulders, pushing me further and further to the ground. Gravity had been pulling me down for far too long. It was time to rejoin the Earth, to throw my body against it, scattering my molecules throughout the dirt so that they might mingle with the worms, and repopulate our planet with their presence. I wanted to lose myself. I was worthless, and was of no use to anyone. I was a failed product of the Earth, and wanted to return to my Mother so that I might be of some use once again.
Slowly, ever so slowly, my hands took themselves off of the wheel. I had gone into a sort of catatonia, no longer controlling my body because my mind had locked up. A maze of thoughts had been set up inside my brain, and the only way I was getting out was to take the right path through them. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I began to color outside the lines, plowing through the snow, tearing gashes in my dark brown Mother, scattering Her blood all over the blanket She was wearing. I pass trees to my right and left, as real as real can get, and yet I still am stuck in a mind lock as my brain despairs. I am alone. I am worthless. In a few moments, I am going to die young and live forever in the hearts of my friends.
My car traveled in a mostly straight line. I slid effortlessly across the snow, like a graceful swan gliding across water, about to be snatched by a gator lurking beneath the surface. I saw the tree I was headed for, a great big beast of a tree that stretched higher than the surrounding trees, as sparsely scattered as they were. If it was an inch it was five feet across. I was going seventy miles an hour, and not wearing a seat belt. Still I sat transfixed, as though I was watching these things happening to someone else.
But I had my windows down. The air flowed in, filling the interior of my car as I had been waiting for something to fill the interior of my soul. That cold air pushed against my skin more firmly and more extensively than any lover ever possibly could. I felt the rush of my speed, the rush of the danger. The adrenaline, that feeling I knew, fight or flight, was back. I knew that if I did not do anything, I would die this day. A virgin. A virgin to many more things in the world than just sex. As virgin as the pure snow that surrounded me. I was connected after all. I was a part of this mortal coil, a part of my Mother all along, and She had a great many joys left to show me beyond the simple touch of Her breath against my skin. She wanted me to live to see it all. The beauty of Her reminded me of the beauty of my life.
My hands were back on the wheel again.