Alex Morel - Survive

We wait silently for a long time as snow turns to slush and slush to water. I sip the warm water as it crests to the top. It is heaven in the form of water. I’ve never tasted anything as sweet in my life. I look at Paul as he takes his first sip and I can tell he’s thinking the same thing I am, which is that I’ve never been truly thirsty before. I’ve never, by turn, ever appreciated how wonderful water is. I laugh, thinking there were days in the institution when I was so depressed that the thought of drinking or eating something depressed me more. That seems unimaginable to me now.

We wait for more to melt. It is agonizingly slow. But each warm mouthful feels like a cup of heaven in your mouth and throat. We look at each other, understanding that each sip is sacred, not to be taken for granted.

Then the light flickers for a few minutes and it dies. Fuck is all I can think. Paul’s face looks grave.

“How long?” I say, my eyes cast downward on our last cup of water.

“Who knows?”

“Best guess?”

“After the weather breaks, and not before then. I’d bet two to three weeks minimum.”

I think of all the news stories about crashed planes and can’t help but wonder about the black box and GPS.

“Shouldn’t they be able to find us with some kind of scanner or something?”

“Like on TV? It doesn’t work that way. We are in the mountains and it’s snowing. There’s probably three hundred miles between us and what we’d call civilization.”

“But still,” I respond. “They can find anything.”

“Last year, a twin engine crashed somewhere I reckon was not far from here with four passengers. In the summer. It took them almost a month to find the plane. I mean, they can probably say it’s around here, but ‘around here’ is under a blanket of snow, in fields of evergreens, and perched one hundred feet below the top of a remote mountain.”

After his speech, we sit in silence. I don’t know what to say or think. I want to believe that we will just be saved, but then I hear Paul’s voice and it sounds so clear and rational. He would know, right?

“And the people?” I ask.

“Pancaked on impact,” he says wryly. “We got a leg up on them there.”

Two weeks on four candy bars and a cup of melted water as long as the butane in the lantern lasts. I calculate and don’t like the odds.

“Can we make it?”

“Possibly, possibly not. Two weeks is a long time.”

“We’re a little protected here, but we’re too hidden; is that what you’re thinking? That this feels safe, but wouldn’t we be better off up there?” I ask, gesturing up the mountain.

“Yes, you’re right. But getting up there will be tough. Do you think you’re up for it? It’s a nasty climb.”

“I want to live,” I say weirdly. Oh my God, I must seem like a total freak to him. I look away and around our little room. He must sense my awkwardness because he squeezes my arm in friend-like way.

“I can see that.”

I nod, having been more honest with Paul than perhaps any person on earth. I think back on all my sessions with the Old Doctor, and I know I never told him that I out and out wanted to hit the switch. When I tried to do it before coming to the institution, I really wanted to succeed. I can see myself for a second, standing in the bathroom two nights ago, with destiny in my palm. I would never have hoped for a plane crash, and it saddens me more that others died, but I am so grateful for the second chance.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“About?”

“The head-you know, the jokes. It wasn’t funny. I didn’t think it was; I just didn’t know what else to do. I say stupid things when I’m nervous.”

I rub one of his hands and then just hold it. In my heart, I believe this is the real Paul. Underneath those man-made veneers is a boy with a big heart who is afraid to be who he is. But why? I wonder. This is going to be okay, I think. Everything is going to be okay.

I wake from a deep, dreamless sleep. I am tired but alert and rejuvenated. “The sleep of the just,” my grandfather used to say to me. At home, I was known for my sleeping prowess, able to leap past a whole day in a single nap. But I never felt well rested, just depressed and sluggish and empty.

There is light poking through a crack in the door. My body is exhausted, but the little speckle of light pulls at me. I reach back to touch Paul, but I realize he is not there. For a moment I panic, and the thought that he has abandoned me makes my heart rate speed up. I quickly twist and turn around our tiny compartment. It takes me all of one-point-three seconds to survey the airplane bathroom-aka our survival bunker: toilet, check; sink, check; supplies, check; Paul, no check.

Then I see a note propped up against a wool hat carefully positioned between the back wall and the latrine. The bottom of the note is slotted into the folded cuff of the hat so it acts like an old-fashioned letter stand. Written in black ink and typical male chicken scratch, the note is on a little piece of torn paper. The stock of the paper is heavy and lightly textured, like from a diary or an expensive, old-fashioned notebook.

I pick it up and read.

Solis-Off to survey-Stay put-will come back 4 u. P

Beneath the hat, I spy a corner of the little black book Paul had tucked into the lining of his jacket during yesterday’s scavenger hunt. A flicker of memory zips through my brain and I recall the slightly pained look on his face as he stared at it momentarily. I pick it up, and even though every instinct in my body tells me not to open it, not to pry, not to violate his privacy or something sacred to him… I succumb. He looked so pained by it, I rationalize, perhaps I could help him. I am, I tell myself, experienced in the art of psychology. Just a peek inside, distill a little info, and then a diagnosis, perhaps followed by a cure? Anyway, I should know more about him, I reason. He could be anyone.

I feel the cover with my hand first. The black leather is smooth and worn. I open it up and look inside. There’s a name carved into the inside of the leather cover, but it’s been scratched out. I can still make it out: Will Hart. For Paul is etched in blue ink below.

Lying inside is a photo of Paul and, I assume, Will. They look like twins, but Will is obviously Paul’s senior by a year or so. The picture was taken from inside a hospital room and Will is in a blue hospital gown. Paul’s face is long and sad and beaten, but there’s stoicism there as well. I turn it over, and on the upper-right-hand corner of the photo, Will’s eighteenth birthday is written.

All the pages in the diary are blank and pressed in a way that suggests the pages have never been turned. I fan through trying to find any signs of writing, but there’s nothing.

In the back, I find a letter written on what my grandfather would have called onionskin paper. It is thin and practically see-through. Back in the day before email and texting, people used this stuff to save money on overseas letters. Did this stuff even exist anymore?

I open the letter and read.

Paul,

I asked Dad to give you this after I died. I can’t believe I’m dead. I can’t believe I just wrote that. I bet you can’t believe you just read it. I wish I had something to say to you, Paul, like in the movies. The dead guy always has something to say. But I’m drawing blanks. I’m glad we always got along. We were different, but we were always brothers. I know Dad’s an idiot in a brilliant idiot way. He doesn’t get it. I know. I’ve heard you say that a million times. You know what he’s said to me a million times? Paul doesn’t understand, he’s a rock head. Well, you are both fucking rock heads. Do it for Johnny, Paul. You know what I mean. Do it for me. Be Dad’s friend for me. I love you, little man.