Chapter 10 #2
“Okay, Ems. It’s okay. Just breathe.” Ben averts his gaze over my shoulder and calmly tells Fridrik, “We’ll ride together.”
As much as I didn’t want this scenario, I’m also so relieved it’s Ben here with me that I could cry.
This trip is pushing me beyond my limits, and while part of me is grateful for that—a very, very small part I can’t seem to summon at this particular moment as we approach the snowmobile behind Fridrik and I climb aboard—I also can’t imagine how awful it would be to face these situations with someone I hardly know.
It’s a blessing and a curse; I trust Ben to keep me safe physically, but relying on him again could break me emotionally.
Right now, I don’t see another choice.
Since we’re amateurs—and therefore much more likely to crash, according to our candid tour guide—Fridrik offers to transport Ben’s camera for us “just in case.” Then we’re fastening our helmets and Ben’s sliding onto the seat between my thighs and the engine is purring to life underneath me.
As I swallow down my rising nerves and tighten my grip around my designated “oh shit” handles, we inch away from the row of snowmobiles, Fridrik leading in front of us, Natalia following behind.
To my pleasant surprise, the trail is well traveled and smooth, and we start out at such a slow pace that I’m able to relax enough to enjoy the views around me, the scene like something out of a fever dream.
Before long we pull off to the side of the trail and cut our engine as Fridrik hops off his snowmobile several yards in front of us.
“I want to show you something,” he says, approaching us with Ben’s camera in hand.
Ben climbs off first and then offers me his hand as I do the same.
Leaving our helmets behind, Ben takes his camera and we follow Fridrik and Natalia as they lead us on a short, steep hike over rolling hills of crushed black rock until we reach a peak with a panoramic view overlooking the vast, contradictory snowscape below.
Glacier meets charred earth in the land of fire and ice.
“Holy shit,” Ben says from beside me. “This is the most incredible view I’ve ever seen. Ever.”
The wonderment in his voice stirs a similar enchantment within me. After the sights of the past two days, I’m convinced one could parachute into Iceland at any random location and be surrounded by the most gorgeous scenery they’ve ever laid eyes on.
After a few moments of stunned silence as we absorb the untouched beauty of the miles upon miles that lie before us, Ben starts taking photos, and Fridrik uses the opportunity to fill me in on a subject I never knew until right now I have no desire to learn about—glacial crevasses.
Adding a renewed spike to my momentarily subdued anxiety level, Fridrik goes into explicit detail about people who have fallen into these crevasses and become trapped between walls of ice, their body heat and each breath they exhale melting the ice just enough for them to slip deeper and deeper, the walls becoming tighter and more compact until they can no longer expand their chests to take a breath, eventually leading to a freezing, suffocating death.
Now, I’m no professional tour guide like Fridrik here, but maybe such vivid, informative stories should be reserved for the monster bus ride back to base camp.
Sensing my unease (perhaps from the way I suddenly grab his wrist and squeeze so tightly I’m sure my nails leave crescent moon indentions in his skin), Ben interrupts story time with Fridrik by asking him to take our picture.
Then he passes his camera off to our guide and puts his arm around my shoulder.
I’m not sure if I smile or grimace into the camera, but at least Fridrik is no longer detailing the many ways to die on this glacier/volcano.
Once we hike back to our snowmobiles, Fridrik utilizes his special skills to send my blood pressure skyrocketing once more with one single sentence.
“If you lose me in a whiteout on the way up,” he says calmly and casually as we refasten our helmets, “stop where you are and wait for me to come back and find you.”
Whiteout?
That doesn’t sound good.
“Ben, what does he mean by that?” Unfortunately, my question gets lost on the whipping wind as we lunge forward.
It’s not snowing.
How would we have a whiteout if it’s not actively snowing?
As we make our way higher up the glacier, it dawns on me.
Fog.
Within minutes we’re ascending into a dense, heavy vortex, our visibility narrowing until any view of the far-reaching landscape from only moments ago is eliminated.
Instead, the only thing I see in front of us is the distant taillight of Fridrik’s snowmobile—a blip of red surrounded by white.
Sheer, all-encompassing white. I’ve spent the majority of my life petrified of the dark, and it turns out this is just as bad.
A cold sweat breaks out across the back of my neck.
Everything’s too tight: my helmet, my jumpsuit, my throat.
Suddenly, I’m leaning into Ben’s back and shouting, “I don’t like this anymore!
” at the top of my lungs. Between our helmets and the wind, I doubt he hears me, but I’m in full panic mode now.
I scream again, “I want to go back! Take me back! I don’t want to do this anymore! ”
Ben’s right hand stays gripping the handlebar to steer us, but his left hand reaches back and lands on my outer thigh with a squeeze of reassurance.
From years of deciphering each other’s body language, I know he’s telling me that he’s got me.
That it’s all going to be okay. That he wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me.
Logically, I know that’s the best he can do in this situation.
Stopping abruptly would put us in far more danger of losing our guides than to keep going with Fridrik’s snowmobile in sight.
But that doesn’t stop my legs from trembling or my lungs from struggling for air in this too-tight helmet.
I scoot as far forward in my seat as I can go, releasing the handles at my sides and wrapping both arms around Ben’s waist instead.
I cling to him like a backpack, and he releases my thigh to press his arm over the two of mine wrapped around his waist, holding me securely in place and slipping his gloved fingers between mine.
I concentrate on slowing my breaths until the flash of red up ahead comes closer, indicating Fridrik has come to a stop.
We pull up beside him a moment later, and Ben cuts the engine, but I don’t let go of him.
“This is it!” Fridrik states triumphantly.
Ben twists his body around and removes my helmet before removing his own. I still don’t let go of him as I pull deep gasps of air into my lungs.
The visibility up here is less than twenty feet max in any direction.
It’s completely disorienting. If we were to be separated from our guides, we’d never find our way back.
We’d die up here with no inkling of which direction was the way down, most likely falling into a glacial crevasse while we searched.
“The highest point of the glacier!” Fridrik continues, so proud and so oblivious. “Please take all the photos you want.”
Natalia pulls up beside us and flips her visor up, and I squeeze Ben tighter, silently conveying that I will murder him in a gruesome manner if he gets off this snowmobile to spend a second longer than necessary in this solid-white world.
“There’s not anything here for me to shoot,” Ben says to my utter relief. “No visibility.”
“Just one of you two then,” Fridrik insists.
Ben hesitates, seemingly torn between getting me out of here as fast as possible and not embarrassing me by pointing out my fear, then passes the guide his phone and slings an arm around my shoulder so it looks less like I’m now adhered to his skin.
Again, I grimace into the camera. These photos are sure to be some of my best.
“Fridrik,” Natalia says as he snaps at least fifteen different shots, “I think our guests here would like to get back to civilization.”
Thank god for women who can decipher each other’s body language.
“You don’t like all the white?” Fridrik asks, seemingly baffled as he motions around us.
Finding my shaky voice, I say, “I do not like it, Fridrik. I do not like it at all.”
Taking the not-so-subtle hint, Fridrik hands Ben’s phone back and says to him sinisterly, “Since it’s just us, we’ll go as fast as you want on the way down.”
We fly back down the glacier at a speed I am certain is not approved for this “beginner’s tour.” Regardless, I’m fine with it because the sooner we emerge from the fucking clouds so I can see the world again, the better.
Soon, the opaque fog transforms to a transparent mist as visibility returns like a veil being lifted, and I breathe a little easier as my fear abates along with the fog.
And yet…I still don’t let go of Ben.