fluid it’s trying to move solidifies in my body’s internal piping. With my blood pressure steadily dropping, my body temperature fluctuates unnaturally, and the slightest breeze sends me into another shivering fit. Drastically losing liquid mass, my organs suffer the brunt of the dehydration; in all, my body is losing between four and five pounds a day. The skin on the back of my hand has shriveled into reptilian crinkles; the poor elasticity allows me to form little tents by plucking at my skin with my teeth.
But for all the physical signs of my body’s dire need for hydration, nothing, nothing compares to the anguish of my thirst: unslakable…unquenchable…unsatisfiable…insuppressible…inextinguishable.
I find myself wishing to get this all over with simply to bring relief to the thirst. As my end comes, it will be in cardiovascular collapse, but I wonder if the thirst won’t take care of the job first.
Two hours later, it is five A.M., and time for my hourly water ritual. I place the water bottle in my crotch and again single-handedly unscrew the lid. I ease my legs’ grip on the bottle and begin to raise it to my mouth. But the lid unexpectedly snags on my harness, and the bottle slips, falling to my lap. My sluggish brain responds too slowly for my hand to catch the bottle before it tilts almost horizontal, and a splash of the sacrament darkens my tan shorts, turning the red dust to a patina of shining mud.
Water is time. With that spill, how many hours did I just lose? Maybe six hours, maybe ten hours, maybe half a day? The mistake hits my morale like a train, destroying my protective walls of discipline and meticulousness that had been keeping despair at bay. Regardless of what I thought earlier, losing half of my remaining supply of water makes me realize how psychologically attached to it I am. Even if I have so little water left that, physiologically speaking, I might as well not have any, emotionally, I feel like I’ve given away half of the rest of my life.
I have been shivering in my wrappings, with my head in my rope bag, trying to push away the nagging cold, when I hear a shout in my sleep-deprived brain. It is just after six-fifteen A.M., Tuesday.
“Larry!” My mom yells out my dad’s name. I see her in her bathrobe, bolting downstairs from their bedroom to tell my dad some terrible news she has just received. The image ends before I see her reach my dad. Different from a memory or a dream, the clip was more like a TV set involuntarily switched on in my mind, broadcasting from my parents’ house. Was it something that already happened? Or a premonition of something yet to come? Either way, I’m fairly sure that I am the reason my mom was rushing to my dad. But was it to say she found out I’m in trouble, or that I’m found, or that I’m dead? It could have been anything.
Gradually, light resurrects the dimensions of the canyon, and I feel buoyed by the knowledge that I’ve survived another night. Now that there’s enough visibility, I decide to update the record of my situation with another round of talking to my video camera.
Wiping at my left eye, I smear my hand across my brow and face, then sigh. I check the framing to make sure I’m at least partially on-screen, but I avoid looking at the camera as I talk.
“It’s six-forty-five in the morning on Tuesday morning,” I repeat to myself.
“I figure by now that Leona has missed me, hopefully, since I didn’t show up at the party last night. Another hour and a half, they’ll miss me for not showing up for work. I keep thinking about it. My best-case scenario is that maybe they notify the police, and they put ’em on a twenty-four-hour hold to officially file a report, a missing person’s report. Which makes it, like, maybe noon tomorrow that it even gets official that I’m gone.”
My frustration mounts, and I’m on the verge of tearing up. “Goddamn. It’s really sinking in, how dumb this is. So many things about it. So many things. It’s gonna be a really long time before anyone gets to me. I was thinking about it more and more. They’re gonna have to pneumatic-drill this rock to pieces or amputate my arm just to get me out of here. That’s when somebody finds me and then goes to get the proper tools. And then it’s a haul up over two considerable staircases to get out to a helicopter landing zone, and then it’s an hour flight to Grand Junction, maybe less than that. Maybe it’s a half hour. Whatever.”
Imagining a team hauling a pneumatic jackhammer down Blue John Canyon to break the rock apart with me still stuck under it makes the idea of rescue seem even more improbable than before. Just getting me free will be a tremendous task, and evacuating me in a litter out of the slot…The space is so confined, I’m not sure there’s a feasible route to use.
The logistics nightmare overloads my hope. I know it’s all theoretical, but even in theory, it sounds like a multi-day ordeal once I’m located. Moving a subject in a litter a hundred yards down a wide road grade takes five minutes with six people. Make it a narrowing winding trail, and it could be a half hour of effort. As soon as there’s a haul or lowering system involved, it adds an hour or two, and that’s with ideal conditions. Each level of complexity adds time and resource demands and elevates the risk to the rescuers. For me, each one of those chockstones I crawled over or under represents a diminished likelihood that I would survive the time it would take to evacuate my useless body. If I’m alive when a rescue team finds me, I will probably die before reaching definitive medical care. Realizing it doesn’t matter-I’ll be dead before searchers get to this part of the canyon, anyway-I close my left eye in an unconscious grimacing wink and continue with the videoing. I’m exasperated.
“I tried…I tried cutting my arm off. I couldn’t even barely break the skin with this stupid knife. I tried a couple different blades, but all I did was just mark myself up. I could barely even get any blood to draw, it’s probably so thick at this point.
“I do still have the tiniest bit of water left. Well, actually, I’ve resorted…I’ve had a couple pretty good sips of my own urine that I saved in my CamelBak. I sorta let it distill. The sediment separated from the more liquidy stuff.”
Emphasizing each word, I elaborate, “It tastes like hell,” and pause, smacking my lips apart when I try to swallow. “I have about a bite of burrito left that I can barely stomach anyways.
“I tried moving the rock some more. It’s not going anywhere.
“So it’s been not quite seventy hours since I left on my bike from Horseshoe Trailhead, during which time I have consumed three liters of water and a couple mouthfuls of piss. Food I’m not so worried about, although I am getting too tired to the point of doing anything. I can’t even chip away at the rock anymore. It’s…I tried, and I don’t have the energy and the gumption…It’s ridiculous.”
Disgusted with my impotence, I shudder and then moan, “Unaaannggh.” Shaking my head, I frown and grimace, then compose myself during a long blink and look straight at the camera for what I want to say next.
“Mom, Dad, I really love you guys. I wanted to take this time to say the times we’ve spent together have been awesome. I haven’t appreciated you in my own heart the way I know I could. Mom, I love you. Thank you so much for coming to visit me in Aspen. Dad, thank you for the time last year when we went on your trip with the Golden Leaf Tour. Those were some of my favorite times that I’ve had with you in a long, long time. Thank you both for being understanding, and supportive, and encouraging during this last year. I really have lived this last year. I wish I had learned some lessons more astutely, more rapidly, than what it took to learn. I love you. I’ll always be with you.”
Tightening my lips, I feel tears welling in my eyes. I bow my head in another long blink, then give the camera a nod, as though I’m saying goodbye, before I reach to pause the tape. A doleful breeze interjects itself in the canyon; the night’s calm is at an end. When I restart the video camera, my thoughts turn to my sister and the cloud of sorrow that will cast a shadow over her graduation and wedding this summer.
“I wanted to say to Sonja and Zack that I really wish you the best in your upcoming life together. You guys are great together. Sonja, you’ve got a great career in front of you. I know you guys are gonna both be very happy. I wish I could be there to see it start off. You’ll graduate about a month from now. Do great things with your life-that will honor me the best. Thanks.”
It makes me happy to think about my sister. Even though I got good grades in school, she came along and one-upped me in every arena, and I love her for it. She cares about learning-she’s planning to be a volunteer teacher. I’m glad for her, but I’m also glad for me. It’s as though Sonja will repay the educational debt I’ve accrued by having taken from the system without giving back. I’m more proud of what she’s done in college than of what I’ve done since I graduated six years ago. Even with me gone, big things will happen in our family because of her; it reassures me to know she has such aspirations.
Another breeze passes up from the unseen recesses of the canyon behind me, making me worry about a change in the weather. I can already discern a sheet of clouds thicker than any I’ve yet seen. No sign of thunderheads, but I wouldn’t necessarily see them before they unleashed a flash flood. I’d forgotten about that risk. While I’ve got the camera out, I decide to record a few more video notes in case the rains come. I start the tape again, panning up to the debris over my head.
“It’s also occurred to me that the flash-flood potential is still present. This stuff all up above me there, it’s all
