One Winter Day

That Day

The pond near the neighborhood park was mostly frozen over, and snow had fallen on top of it in such a curious way that it was almost canceled out from the landscape completely. There was no more water, just an uninterrupted field of white. That must have been why Samson never stopped. A goose took off, the leash ripped out of my hand, and he was tearing down over the field and out onto the icy pond, and he did not stop. He rushed over it, and with a quick, deafening crack, was engulfed underneath it. I was left alone on the water's edge while my sister ran back for help. 

I watched him writhe, and scream, and fall again and again back under the water. Arguably, I was left more helpless than the dog, because I could do nothing but stand there and shout his name. I paced around the edge, running back and forth like a children's toy on a wire track, unable to break form and do something useful. Anything useful. 

Then, without thinking, I set my foot out onto the surface of the ice. I drew it back, then, set it back out again. I took another step and kept on stepping wherever the ice seemed thickest. I couldn't believe what I was doing. I was just like every other stupid kid on the news, but I couldn't go back. About ten steps away from where my dog had fallen in, the ice thinned out. In the back of my head, I knew that I would not be able to take one more step forward without falling in, but I couldn't go back. I reached my foot out, slowly...and my entire body had crashed down under before my brain could even register the sound of the ice smashing apart.

  In that moment, everything was gone. A blank slate, but pitch black. The world ground to a halt, and I was suspended in a muffled dreamworld of nothing. I was like an insect perfectly preserved in amber, just as alive as I was dead, without a single thought in my head. I wasn't cold. In fact, I wasn't much of anything. In the next second, I was sucking in a painful gasp of air. That is when I felt cold. I felt very, very cold, but now my mind was spinning‒‒ 300 miles per hour-- and I flew out of that water. I can't tell you how I did it. I couldn't feel my arms.