Aron Ralston - Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Where is the confidence I felt during the vision I had of the little blond boy, my future son? Psychologically, I thought I had hit bottom the night before, when I carved my epitaph, only to then find assurance in picking up that toddler. But my buoyancy has been enchained by the stoic might of the boulder and the bitterness of the piss that etches ridges into the roof of my mouth. Drinking sip after sip of urine from my grotesque stash in the Nalgene has eroded the inside of my mouth, leaving my palate raw, reminding me that I am going to die. The piss’s acidity dissolves any remaining self-belief I found in the middle of the night. If I am going to live, why am I drinking my own urine? Isn’t that the classic mark of a condemned man? I have been sentenced and left to decay.

It’s eight-thirty A.M., but the raven hasn’t flown over me yet. I wonder after it for a time but lose my thoughts to the insects that are swarming with all-time intensity around the chockstone. After I swat a few of the flying bugs with my left hand, killing them to entertain myself, I look at my yellow Suunto, which says 8:45. Even the bird has forsaken me-it has not been later than 8:30 for its daily flight, but today, nothing, no raven. In its absence, I feel that my time draws nearer, as though it was a totemic deity sustaining me.

A desire bubbles up: I want to die with music in my ears. Somewhere along the days, even that dreadful BBC song from Austin Powers lost its hold on my psyche. But I can’t bring a single melody to mind. All I have is the awful hush of the canyon; silence maddens me. I need my CD player. The headphones haven’t left my ears or neck in five days, but the player and two CDs are in the main compartment of my backpack. I sling my sack off my back with three easy movements and rest it on my raised left knee, my fingers diving to the bottom, where they find the Discman and discs…and a half inch of sand.

Before I extract the equipment, I know it’s a hopeless cause. The discs are scratched beyond playability. Five days in the desert have left their plastic coatings looking like I took a belt sander to them. No matter. The Discman won’t even spin the disc that’s in it already. It tells me NO DISC each time I push play. I swap out the batteries, but only to be thorough. I must have bashed the unit against the wall at some point over the last five days and whacked the laser out of alignment.

The camcorder, however, has survived the sand and havoc in my pack. Giving up on the music, I decide to video another bit. It occurs to me that I’ve entered the time of highest probability that I will be rescued while I’m still alive. I put my backpack back on and resecure the shoulder strap for the fiftieth time. Resting the video unit on the chockstone, I get myself settled and try to collect my thoughts. When I first speak, the thinness and elevated pitch of my own voice startles me. Another reminder that I am nearly dead, just waiting for the Reaper.

“I was just thinking…It’s Thursday at about nine o’clock in the morning. I’m entering the highest probability of time that will interface…that someone will actually find me, and that I’ll still be alive.”

“That’s almost good news,” I think. But considering that I’ve established the rescue window to start anytime today through Sunday, it’s not cause for hope of imminent help. My chances have upgraded from “ridiculously improbable” to perhaps “totally unlikely.” I don’t dwell on the issue. In fact, because my mind is confounded by a persistent and deepening daze, I couldn’t dwell on something if I wanted to-I don’t have the mental stamina. Somewhat randomly, I think about my sister and her wedding. She and Zack had asked me to play the piano for a few minutes during their upcoming ceremony in August, and I said I would. But obviously, I won’t; I won’t even be there. It disheartens me, but I realize there may be something I can do.

“Sonja…if you still want me to play at your wedding…there’s a tape in a box in the basement of Mom and Dad’s house. The box is labeled, I think, ‘My Piano Stuff,’ or ‘My Music,’ maybe. There’s a tape in there. It’s me, playing mostly music audition songs from about 1993 or 1994.”

I immediately imagine her inserting the tape into a cassette deck, listening to the songs at our parents’ home with my mom. I know it will be an ultimate effort for them to listen to the music I played so studiously ten years ago: Mozart and Bach, Beethoven and Chopin, my favorite. Another image jumps into my mind, this time from the wedding. I can’t place the exact setting, but it is pastoral and outdoors. The same piano music wafts broodingly from a speaker system, churning into a menacing cloud that breaks to drench the assembly of our extended family in a downpour of tears. My death will cast blackness over Sonja’s wedding, but I know she will carry on with it. There will be no question and no reason to postpone. Life moves on for the living.

I move on and scatter the images of my mother and sister in my mind, leaving a broken trail of thought to pick up again later. Realizing there was one more thing I forgot to mention about my financial assets, I start to explain my wishes for my retirement planning accounts.

“Also, obviously, my Schwab IRA accounts can go to Sonja if there’s…”

I don’t finish the sentence. Disjointed thoughts spasm, my mind is adrift. Where there was previously a concept I was attempting to express, I don’t have even a memory. I float, expressionless, lost, then stumble upon another fleeting thought, but I can’t connect with it fast enough to bring it to words. It sinks back under the surface of my mental ocean, then bobs up again. This time I seize it. It has to do with my cremation and the distribution of my ashes.

“Oh…um…clarifications…Knife Edge peak…For the part of me that goes back to New Mexico. The Bosque and Knife Edge-the Knife Edge being one of my favorite climbs ever. So maybe that would be what Dan and Willow and Steve DeRoma, Jon Jaecks, Eric Neimeyer, and Steve Patchett would go and do.”

Clearing my throat once again, I press the silver record button on the back of the unit. I hope what I’ve said on the tape will serve both as an appropriate goodbye to my loved ones and as my last will and testament. I’ve covered what to do with my possessions and finances, and I’ve tidied up my estate, as much as I have one to tidy, hoping to benefit my sister. While I could have been more organized, I am drained from the effort involved in thinking through all this and have no wish to edit or redo any of the video. For what will be the last time, I fold the screen of the recorder flush against the camera body and tuck the unit into its notch between the left side of the chockstone and the canyon wall.

Miserable, I watch another empty hour pass by. At least I don’t have to fight to stay warm. The cold bite of the outer atmosphere no longer sucks off my body heat as it did throughout the night. But by removing the need to reconfigure the ropes around my legs and the cloth and plastic wraps around my arms, daytime has removed the last bustle from my experience in the canyon. Without even that minimal distraction, I have nothing whatsoever to do. I have no life. Only in action does my life approximate anything more than existence. Without any other task or stimulus, I’m no longer living, no longer surviving. I’m just waiting.

Since the recoiling blows of the hammer rock tenderized my left hand, all I’ve had left to do is wait. For what, though? Rescue…or death? It doesn’t matter to me. The two endings represent the same thing-salvation and deliverance from my suffering. I can’t stand the inactivity that breeds such apathy. At this point, the waiting itself is the worst part of my entrapment. And when I’m done waiting, all there is, is more waiting. I can touch the face of infinity in these doldrums. Nothing gives even a slight hint that the stillness will break.