Николас Спаркс - The Longest Ride

“Are you listening to me?” she asks.

I close my eyes, trying to make the dizziness stop, but it only increases, colored spirals exploding behind my eyes. “Yes,” I finally whisper, a dry rasp in the volcanic ash of my throat. My thirst claws at me with a vengeance. Worse than before. Infinitely worse. It’s been more than a day since I’ve had anything to drink, and the desire for water consumes me, growing stronger with every labored breath.

“The water bottle is here,” Ruth suddenly says to me. “I think it is on the floor by my feet.”

Her voice is soft and lilting, like a melody, and I try to latch on to the sound to avoid thinking about the obvious. “How do you know?”

“I do not know for sure. But where else can it be? It is not on the seat.”

She’s right, I think to myself. It’s likely on the floor, but there is nothing I can do to reach it. “It doesn’t matter,” I finally say in despair.

“Of course it matters. You must find a way to reach the bottle.”

“I can’t,” I say. “I’m not strong enough.”

She seems to absorb this and remains quiet for a moment. In the car, I think I hear her breathing before I realize that it is I who has begun to wheeze. The blockage in my throat has begun to form again.

“Do you remember the tornado?” she suddenly asks me. There is something in her voice imploring me to concentrate, and I try to figure out what she’s referring to. The tornado. It means nothing at first, and then, slowly, the memory begins to acquire shape and significance.

I’d been home from work for an hour when all at once the sky turned an ominous shade of grayish green. Ruth stepped outside to investigate, and I remember seizing her by the hand to drag her to the bathroom in the center of the house. It was the first tornado she’d ever experienced, and though our house was unharmed, a tree down the street had been toppled, crushing a neighbor’s car. “It was 1957,” I say. “April.”

“Yes,” she says. “That is when it happened. I am not surprised you remember. You always remember the weather, even from long ago.”

“I remember because I was frightened.”

“But you remember the weather now, too.”

“I watch the Weather Channel.”

“This is good. There are many good programs on this channel. There is sometimes much to learn.”

“Why are we talking about this?”

“Because,” she says to me, urgency in her tone, “there is something you must remember. There is something more.”

I don’t understand what she means, and in my exhaustion, I realize I suddenly don’t care. The wheeze grows worse and I close my eyes, beginning to float on a sea of dark, undulating waves. Toward a distant horizon, away from here. Away from her.

“You have seen something interesting lately!” she shouts.

And still, I drift. Outside the car. Flying now. Under the moon and stars. The night is clearing and the wind has died, and I’m so tired I know I will sleep forever. I feel my limbs relax and lose heft.

“Ira!” she shouts, the panic in her voice rising. “There is something you must remember! It was on the Weather Channel!”

Her voice sounds far away, almost like an echo.

“A man in Sweden!” she shouts. “He had no food or water!”

Though I can barely hear her, the words somehow register. Yes, I think, and the memory, like the tornado, also begins to take shape. Umeå. Arctic Circle. Sixty-four days.

“He survived!” she shouts. She reaches for me, her hand coming to rest on my leg.

And in that moment, I stop drifting. When I open my eyes, I’m back in the car.

Buried in his car in the snow. No food or water.

No water…

No water…

Ruth leans toward me, so close I can smell the delicate rose notes of her perfume. “Yes, Ira,” she says, her expression serious. “He had no water. So how did he survive? You must remember!”

I blink and my eyes feel scaly, like those of a reptile. “Snow,” I say. “He ate the snow.”

She holds my gaze and I know she is daring me to look away. “There is snow here, too,” she says. “There is snow right outside your window.”

At her words, I feel something surge inside me despite my weakness, and though I am afraid of movement, I nonetheless raise my left arm slowly. I inch it forward on my thigh and then lift it, moving it to the armrest. The exertion feels mammoth and I take a moment to catch my breath. But Ruth is right. There is water close by and I stretch my finger toward the button. I’m afraid the window won’t open, but still I stretch my finger forward. Something primal keeps me going. I hope the battery still works. It worked before, I tell myself again. It worked after the accident. Finally my finger meets the button and I push it forward.

And like a miracle, bitter cold suddenly invades the interior. The chill is brutal and a dab of snow lands on the back of my hand. So close now, but I am facing the wrong way. I must lift my head. The task seems insurmountable, but the water calls out to me and it is impossible not to answer.

I raise my head, and my arm and shoulder and collarbone explode. I see nothing but white and then nothing but black, but I keep on going. My face feels swollen, and for an instant, I don’t think I’ll make it. I want to put my head back down. I want the pain to end, yet my left hand is already moving toward me. The snow is already melting and I can feel the water dripping and my hand keeps moving.

And then, just when I’m on the brink of giving up, my hand meets my mouth. The snow is wonderful, and my mouth seems to come alive. I can feel the wetness on my tongue. It is cold and sharp and heavenly, and I feel the individual drops of water trace a path down my throat. The miracle emboldens me and I reach for another handful of snow. I swallow some more and the needles vanish. My throat is suddenly young like Ruth, and though the car is freezing, I do not even feel the cold. I take another handful of snow, and then another, and the exhaustion I felt just a minute ago has dissipated. I’m tired and weak, but this seems infinitely bearable by comparison. When I look at Ruth, I can see her clearly. She’s in her thirties, that age when she was most beautiful of all, and she is glowing.

“Thank you,” I finally say.

“There is no reason to thank me.” She shrugs. “But you should roll up the window now. Before you get too cold.”

I do as she tells me, my eyes never leaving hers. “I love you, Ruth,” I croak.

“I know,” she says, her expression tender. “That is why I have come.”

The water has restored me in a way that seemed impossible even a few hours earlier. By this, I mean my mind. My body is still a wreck and I am still afraid to move, but Ruth seems comforted by my recovery. She sits quietly, listening to the chatter of my thoughts. Mostly I am preoccupied with the question of whether someone will ever find me…

In this world, after all, I’ve become more or less invisible. Even when I filled my tank with gasoline – which led to me getting lost, I now think – the woman behind the counter looked past me, toward a young man in jeans. I’ve become what the young are afraid of becoming, just another member of the nameless elderly, an old and broken man with nothing left to offer to this world.

My days are inconsequential, comprising simple moments and even simpler pleasures. I eat and sleep and think of Ruth; I wander the house and stare at the paintings, and in the mornings, I feed the pigeons that gather in my backyard. My neighbor complains about this. He thinks the birds are a disease-ridden nuisance. He may have a point, but he also cut down a magnificent maple tree that straddled our properties simply because he was tired of raking the leaves, so his judgment isn’t something that I consider altogether trustworthy. Anyway, I like the birds. I like the gentle cooing noises they make and I enjoy watching their heads bob up and down as they pursue the seed I scatter for them.