think I even got a couple of you guys to your first Phish show.”
I’m feeling my tiredness delaying my efforts to speak coherently. Simply being awake seems to be fully taxing my brainpower. I need rest, but I can’t sleep. Bracing my left elbow against the southern canyon wall, I hold my head up with my hand and continue.
“Bryan Long, that one we did last year. Mountain biking and hiking and hot springs, then two Cheese shows, and another two Cheese shows. Zach, thanks for being my friend, we got to go hiking up on Sandia Peak with Erik that day. Ahhh, fun. I do appreciate all those times, so many good folks in my life. Rana, our trip to Telluride to see the Cheese. That was my best ‘last day’ ever, skiing in the full-blown pigtails, tie-dye shirt, pink fluorescent boa, our flags flying high that day.”
My smile is cracking my dry lips. I need some lip balm, but I’ll wait to get to it in a minute. Even the pain of my lips makes me feel thankful for the people I love.
“So thanks, everybody. Thanks for the good times. I do appreciate each and every one of you. Norm and Sandy, you guys are like my folks away from home. All my friends’ parents, too, for bringing up such wonderful people who have participated in my life, thank you. My friends in Aspen that I got to stay with over the last six months, beautiful, beautiful people, all of you, thank you. Bryan and Jenn Welker, Bryan Gonzales and Mike Check, thanks. Rachel, you’re a wonderful woman, thank you. I could say the same thing about a lot of people in my life. Thankfully, I’m getting to say it now. I love you all. Hugs.”
Wow. How good do I feel now? I wonder if this is a bit like my life flashing before my eyes, but on a slower time line. What makes the human brain respond to death with reflection? I always figured people saw images of their family as a way of saying goodbye, but considering what the memories have done for me-giving me a surge of positive energy, smiling, feeling happy-I ruminate over an ulterior purpose. Perhaps the whole life’s highlights reel thing is a survival instinct, something engrained in our subconscious, the brain’s final trick in the bag to continue its own existence. I imagine that once adrenaline has failed to engage a successful fight-or-flight impulse, the flash of memories acts as a secondary reflex, motivating us to keep fighting even when we don’t think there’s any fight left in us. In the face of an imminent demise, the medulla oblongata kicks into involuntary overdrive and says, “You think you’re done? How about all those people who care about you? How about all those people you care about?” and bam! you’ve got a little more spunk. Maybe that’s why suicide seems most tempting when you don’t have people telling you they love you, or when you don’t care if they do-there is no flash, the backup system fails. Maybe that’s why our brains store memories in the first place, to spur on a stubborn body when the endgame has begun. Well, whatever. I’ll take the happiness and uplift and leave the psychobabble. I feel good, that’s the important thing.
Come noon, I am biding my death, shackled to the canyon wall. With so much practice sitting in my harness, I have found the most comfortable angle for my knees, the best height for my daisy chain, and the perfect edge location for the rope coiled like a pad in front of my shins. I have taken care of my body to the best of my faculties with the available resources. Strangely, I have to pee again. I decide I will decant my current stash before I unzip, but pouring off the clearer top part of the liquid in my CamelBak will be quite the coordination challenge. I grip my empty Nalgene between my thighs and hold it steady while I bite the upper end of the blue CamelBak water bag in my teeth. I keep the reservoir tilted, one bottom corner lower than the other, and the sediment settles off to one side of the outlet. I pinch the bite valve with my fingers, slowly letting the liquid run out into the Nalgene as the salt silt stays behind. With only the dregs left in my CamelBak, I close the Nalgene lid, set it on the chockstone, and dump out the leftovers from the blue reservoir into the sand behind my feet. Ewww. That shit stinks.
I pee into the CamelBak and close the lid tight, setting it back onto the chockstone next to the Nalgene. This fluid is the darkest yet, pungent and warm. I’ll let it cool off and settle before I decant it again-the taste isn’t so ripe when it’s colder.
At about one-thirty Tuesday afternoon, I decide to pray once more. This time, I already have my answer as to what I should do. There’s only one thing left-wait for death or rescue, more likely the former. So instead of asking for guidance or direction, I ask for patience.
“God, it’s Aron again. I still need your help. It’s getting bad here. I’m out of water and food. I know I’m going to die soon, but I want to go naturally. I’ve decided that regardless of what I might go through, I don’t want to take my own life. It occurred to me that I could, but that’s not the way I want to go. As it is, I don’t figure I’ll live another day-it’s been three days already-I don’t figure I’ll see Wednesday noon. But please, God, grant me the steadfastness not to do anything against my being.”
I am going to see this through, whichever way it ends.
The third twenty-four-hour period of my entrapment is done. There is no water left to conserve, no potentially liberating trial left to complete. At three P.M., with nothing left to decide, my existence comes down to this: Take care of myself as best I can, physically and mentally. Physically, there is nothing I need to do until nightfall-the afternoon is the warmest time, so my only need is to adjust my body position to keep my circulation somewhat active.
The lack of demands from my body leaves nearly my full attention on sustaining my mind. Without sleep, external stimuli barely seem real, and some of them aren’t. I’ve heard voices twice more since I solved the mystery of the kangaroo rat’s nest, but they weren’t real sounds, just fabrications that my brain conjured to fill the audio void of the canyon. There is only the thinnest thread connecting my conscious thoughts with reliable reason. I’m wary that something will slip past and trick me into a rash or dangerous decision. Time passes most quickly when I am recounting memories. I return again and again to them. I realize I’ve left out a very close friend from the videotape; it’s time once more for filming.
My labored, shallow breathing resounds in the canyon. I try to settle it before I begin, but it forces me to pause every few words. Fatigue has overcome my neck muscles, and I have to prop my head with my left hand, as I did before.
“Continuing with the theme. I was thinking about Mark Van Eeckhout, all the great times we’ve had together. Back from our trip to Aravaipa, driving out there when I sat in the back of your truck, listening to cheesy eighties music with Angie. To when we skied little Williams Peak near Flagstaff. And our big-powder day at Wolf Creek, still one of the greatest days ever in my skiing life. All the great days at Pajarito together and coming up to visit in Los Alamos, and mountain biking, and climbing. To getting out on Baldy, my first backcountry trip. All the trips we did with Patchett over those Labor Days, man, so many great times there. Four Labor Days in a row, I think, we made it out. I loved every one of them. Vestal Peak and that trip up Wham Ridge, Pigeon the next year, Jagged the year after that, Dallas the year after that. Man, some of my favorite mountain trips there with you guys. Oh, wow.”
My exhausted smile allows a soft moan to slip out of my mouth. After a pause, I change tack, remembering a few of my financial holdings that my family will likely have to sort through.
“Logistics for a second. I’ve got stocks with CompuServe, UBS PaineWebber, the briefcases under my clothes rack in Aspen have the information about the stocks. I got rid of the Delphi stock, still have the GM stock. Those can go for Sonja or Mom and Dad, if you have another use for them. For the search-and-rescue folks who do execute the body recovery, it’d be appropriate to give them a donation for their efforts, too.”
I feel good that I’ve covered just about all the bases to make it easier for my parents to close out what small estate I have. But really, what is on my mind is food and drink. Chilled, succulent nectars, fruits, cold desserts, all things moist and yummy.
“Man, I can’t stop thinking about grapefruit juice, a margarita, or an OJ, or a Popsicle, all these great things I’d love to have. An orange, a tangerine. Oh, I can’t think about that stuff.
“I’m thinking that in the best of all possible situations that someone’s gotten ahold of Mom and Dad by now, that you guys are at least aware I’m missing, um, yeah, I don’t know.”
I want my parents to know that when they found out I was missing, I was still alive.
About forty minutes later, before four o’clock, I remove the final bite of my last convenience-store burrito from its plastic wrapper. The pale white flour tortilla has desiccated around the softer bean interior. Moist it is not. The bite I had at noon was cardboard, primed to absorb any remaining fluids from my body. Once again, I debate the merits of my next action. Will the last chunk dry me up more than it will provide sustenance? I don’t know. I do know I’m hungry. The wrapper’s nutritional information tells me I have eaten a total of five hundred calories in the two burritos over the last seventy-two hours, and I guess I have about fifty calories left in this last bite. When I’m active, I eat twice the recommended daily average of food, between four and five thousand calories a day. Going since Saturday without substantial food, my body is consuming itself to make up the difference. As little as I have
