The only thing I know for sure is that all the philosophers were wrong. Death is not pleasant nor something to not be feared, death is cold. Dante was right by setting the 9th circle of hell in ice because torment is not burning eternally it is being gnawed by frost’s relentless bite.

The slow thawing was when I regained conciousness. Not some half-assed pediatric conciousness but Jungian conciousness, acute awareness and wisdom. The reverberations of life permeated my body as waves of sensation crawled across my frame. It was like being stabbed over every inch of my body.

As I began my slow journey outward I began to sense more and more. My eyes adjusted to light as if they had been hibernating and needed to relearn how to see. My body began to shiver from the cold as my feeling bagan to return. Torents of sound richotcheted around my brain like bullets colliding isnide of my skull.

It took a few minutes to relize I was not alone. I truly think that for a few minutes I beleived I was the only man alive, blissful minutes. The men who stood around me were tall, but I had no great claim to perception of height because when I looked across the room I saw a drinking glass stand seven feet tall.

“His irises are uneven and they keep unfocusing,” one of the doctors said. But to my untrained ears it sounded like a hoard of racoons clawing through trash,

My sight remained tinged for a few minutes but soon my senses began to dull. The heightened state of conciousness, however, did not leave me.

It was days before I could remember why I had gone into the cryochamber. Peices of the complex puzzle of life formed in my mind and slowly conected. The yound boy who would one day become Adolf Hitler. My mother who carried me a few years to early so that I would have to serve in one of the biggest blood bathes known to man. The mother of a future German soldier who would throw a hand grenade near me in such a precise location that only a few shards hit my frontal lobe leaving me wounded but not dead. The years of trying to find expieremental surgeries to remove the shards and finally my retreat to the cryochamber.

If even one of those peices had been altered slightly, it would have changed my future and subsiquently made a blemish in the overall history of mankind.

I was under constant surveilance, as if I were in the Soviet Union and not the United States of America, in the facility.

I was given a small room, which resembled a hotel with plad curtains and a TV. The TV I was given was like I remmebered: small, boxy and black and white. They told me a lot had changed but if the TV were a symbol for how much things have changed then not much seemed to have shifted. This beleif was soon destroyed as I eyed the mini fridge (that is what I was told it was called.) The shelves were decked with food that I did not recognize.

As I was inspecting my room for clues of what the future meant for me, a doctor entered my room.

“I assume that knocking is a foreign concept in 2019,” I said sarcastically to the doctor. His only response was a shameless chuckle which infuriated me.

“I do apologize for that, but I am very eager to be talking to you. There are only a handful of people who have been frozen for as long as you have and survived.”

“Please get to the point of why you are here I wish to sleep,” I said with a hint of distaste.

“Yes of course. We have given you scheduled times that you may leave with an assistant so that you may begin to familiarze yourself with the world,” the doctor said.

“If this TV is any indication of what this world has become then I will not have to familiarize myself with much,” I responded.

“Oh. That is not what televisions look like now. We have tried to decorate your room in a manner which fit your time period. Televisions are very large now.” My superiority wavered at this. Up until this point I hadn’t thought much about the advancments of human technology because I had beleived it hadn’t advanced too much.

“Well I guess we will see how I can handle it,” I say incredulously, “Now please leave.”

The doctor swiftly got up and drifted out the door.

The first thing I noticed, when I left the facility, was that cars had advanced so that they looked like sharp wasps instead of fluid worms. They moved faster and vibrant colors splashed across each one. Even the dull greys and browns were glossy and colorful.

The second thing I noticed, as we drove into the suburbs of New Jeresey, was the ammount of people. I was told that we were still leagues away from any actual city, but swarms of people choked the streets. They were all different colors, mixing together like choclate powder in milk. Like ants, they all flowed from there dwellings and recreation centers clogging the world.

We eneded at a park in New Jeresy outside of all city limits. The grass had seemed to dull in the years since I had seen it. The clouds were darker as if they had been pumped with gasoline (I later figured out that was the case).

I envisioned my world, my life in the fold of this gargantuan monster of planet. I was enveloped in the claustrophobic feelings which were created from the sheer ammount of people I had seen.

The park itself seemed so uncomfortably unsanitary that I retreated back to the car. The trees were the only thing which hadn’t changed all too much. They stood like sentinals of time unhindered by its flow.

It reminded of a story I had been told when I was young. It went a little like this, “One day a strong storm swept across a forrest leveling many trees. As one of the trees fell, it landed next to a little fern which had not fallen. The tree, while laying there, asked the fern ‘how is it that I have fallen and you have not?’ The fern responded, ’Dear friend, the wind is proud, for this reason we ferns bow to it whereas you trees stand steadfast. You would not have fallen if you had shown humility.”

I found myself seeing the planet in the same way. The advancments made by human kind were just the steadfast stubborness of the tree and one day soon, I am convicned, we will follow that fate.

A gentle lattice of rain trickles down the carriage’s windows, a living, liquid curtain that distorts the stunning view of Scotland’s pastoral countryside. The West Coast Main Line is outstandingly beautiful, as is typical this time of year, yet my mood is marred by the nagging anxiety that I harbor in the back of my mind, a product of overwhelming uncertainty and the most ghastly fog to which I awoke in London this morning. The whole town reeked of rotted eggs, and something about the air made one feel as though one’s lungs were being crushed in. Not that anyone needs any help feeling that way, as of late. Talk about a year for the rubbish bin. It all started with the destruction of Cairo by fire, followed promptly by the passing of our beloved King George—God rest his soul. Take all that and add it to the Polio epidemic, that dreadful disease running rampant across the Empire—or what’s left of it—ravaging our children, no less. And if that weren’t enough to signal the end of the world, let’s cap it all off with the design and detonation of our first Atomic Bomb; why we’ve decided to follow the example of our wayward cousins across the Atlantic, I’ll never know.

And still, we carry on, as we always do. Be it into the jaws of hell or to the end of life as we know it, that remains to be seen.

“We’re coming up on Glasgow. You might want to start pulling your head out of the clouds,” says my traveling companion, Charles, from his seat beside me. He stands up and grabs the most grotesque-looking tweed briefcase from the storage overhead, something I’d never be caught dead carrying in public.

Charles is the Special Programs Advisor to the Secretary of State for War and, as such, the primary liaison in charge of financing my project. It also so happens we grew up in the East End together, a fact that certainly doesn’t hurt my chances of continued funding, though I’ve never been one to place all my eggs in one basket. This project must be able to stand on its own merit, independent of whatever personal history I may have.

“You look nervous,” he says, leaning on his seat with one arm.

I pull my attention from the window and grab my coat from the back of my own seat. “Perhaps I am,” I admit.

“What’s got you so upset, then?”

I sigh, letting my exhale carry the weight of my anxiety. “I’d be a fool not to know what this extended timeline is doing to you and your office. If we fail today, it may take years to seek out the bugs and rectify our formulas, and I'm guessing you can only divert funds for so long without people asking questions.”

There’s a pause where the only sound comes from the small number of other travelers in the carriage and the steady cachunk, cachunk of the wheels as they pass along the rails.

“Yes, well,” he says with a strained look, clearly concealing the fact that he, too, shares my concerns. “Let’s hope this is a smashing success, then.”

I give a weak smile in response and look back out the window. The stars are just beginning to peek out from behind the rainclouds, despite the fact that it’s barely four o’clock. It gets dreadfully dark up here in the winter—not that London is much better—though there’s something about the heavens at night that have always enchanted me. Most of the rest of the world seems to be perpetually focused on terrestrial matters—taxes, politics, moving borders a foot this way or that—truly something that baffles me to no end. Why would anyone be so engrossed in the matters of this war-torn, plague-ridden planet? Why would anyone be content to remain tethered to our small fleck of a home, our grain of sand in a sea of stars and galaxies? Personally, I find the most solace outside our thin blue atmosphere, up beyond the reach of the insignificant and inconsequential.

Well, in any case, the only ones who seem to agree with me are the Russians, albeit their intentions tend to lean on the viler side, a most unfortunate reality. Though, perhaps the American beast will be wakened at the threat of Russian dominance, as pride-driven as they are. But, the Empire cannot wait upon her prodigal son to stand as defender of the world, not again. We must take our future into our own hands, which is why it’s so crucial that my work succeeds, and that it succeeds quickly.

The train pulls into the station, and a small herd of us are ushered unceremoniously out of the carriage. Pockets of families wish each other well and give their final loving goodbyes, an emotional rabble that peppers the platform with sentimental trifle. I feel a tinge of guilt for seeming so heartless in my thoughts, but held within the frame of what I know we mean to attempt, it all seems rather trivial. Not that I blame them. The people of Glasgow never truly felt the sting of the war like those of us in London did. They never had to rush to cover their windows when the dreaded siren sounded to herald in the Blitz, nor were they forced to watch in dreaded awe as rockets rained down upon helpless civilians faster than the speed of sound itself. So why on Earth would they feel the same level of urgency that’s been so deeply impressed upon me? Why should they feel that same fire to never again become subject to the dominance of fear or any of her allies.

Anyways, the war has passed, and now we’ve turned our swords into plowshares. We fight a war of the mind rather than one of might—a cold war, to quote George Orwell, if you will. Wernher von Braun, the German-American scientist who developed the V-2, now talks about using his tool to send humanity to Mars. It seems mad, right? Using those lethal weapons, the very embodiment of Vengeance itself, to blast something, someone, off this planet, all in the name of science. But a weapon capable of flattening a city in a single strike seemed like fiction, too, before it became fact. And now, our charge, and the charge of any freedom-loving scientist, is to prevent the Red Menace from attempting to reshape the proverbial plow back into a weapon of unimaginable consequence. We must always stay one step ahead, if not more.

Von Braun purposes to build a platform in our planet’s orbit, a space station that we might use to launch ourselves to the Moon and beyond. The Russians and the Americans may soon accomplish such a feat, but we must be prepared, as the British Nation, to dominate well beyond the influence of Ares. That is where my research comes into play. The journey to realms beyond our inner Solar System may take a considerable amount of time, time that our physiology and biology do not allow. Therefore, the use of cryogenics is key to success when suggesting an expedition farther than the Asteroid Belt.

Today, I will be taking a frozen nap, as it were, just for a month, long enough to chemically analyze my cellular response and measure the aging process while I’m under. I could indeed have someone else take my spot, but I wouldn’t dare trust anyone else. Not with how close we are. If my test is successful, we could be sending people to the outer reaches of our Solar System in a matter of years. And the possibilities from there are endless.

The journey to the research facility just beyond the outskirts of Glasgow is uneventful, if not comfortable, in the unmarked government vehicle. Charles and I exchange no more than a few small words about the passing weather, and by the time we’ve arrived, my mind is quite thoroughly focused on the upcoming test. We pass quickly through the security checkpoints and end up within the familiar walls of my laboratory, which I’ve been using for a host of research experiments these past several years.

My assistants have ensured that everything is waiting and ready ahead of our arrival, and after everyone has settled into the viewing area, I give a few brief words describing the demonstration, then settle into the cryogenic chamber. It’s all rather quick, compared to the seven hour journey here from London, but I prefer it that way. I’m sure I should be nervous as one of my assistants closes the top to the chamber, but honestly, I’m too tired and too mentally strained to be nervous.

There’s a hiss as nitrous fills the chamber, and within moments my vision goes dark.

~

“Doctor Martin, sir, can you hear me? Can you hear my voice?”

I groan and open my eyes, only to have them instantly overwhelmed by a flood of light. Has the test run its course? Has it already been a month? It feels like only a few seconds have passed, not anywhere near the planned twenty-nine days. Regardless of how long it's been, I’m shivering uncontrollably, and I notice that my skin is an unrecognizable shade of purple.

It takes several minutes of blinking and rubbing before I can make out the blurred image of two figures standing in front of me. One of them is a rather tall woman with dark hair and a slender form, the other a sturdily built man with a cleanly shaved head and a thin layer of scruff on his face. Neither of them appear to be members of my research team, nor do they appear, well, for lack of a better word…normal. They have the strangest clothing on, though they do seem to be official looking—what with sidearms strapped to their chests and wearing what could technically pass as business attire.

“Who are you? Why did the test stop?” I grumble, shocked by the trembling roughness of my own voice. A slew of physicians appear at my side and begin fussing around my body, but I beat them off, and they retreat behind the man with the scruff.

“Doctor Martin, I’m Agent Ford and this is Agent Knight. We're with Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, and we’re here to debrief you and make sure that you’re doing okay,” the woman says carefully, as if speaking to a young child that’s just been injured. Her tone is laced with a hint of, what is it…pity?

“Debrief me? Are you with Charles? Did he send you? I need to start running analysis right away—”

I make a move to stand up, but Agent Knight holds out his hand authoritatively, and I pause.

“Sir, I think you should take it slow,” Agent Ford says with an intentional dose of serenity in her voice. “There are a few things we need to tell you that might come as quite a shock.”

I take notice of the laboratory for the first time since waking up, and my blood instantly chills about ten degrees. The whole room is a wreck—bottles and beakers smashed everywhere, bullet holes riddling the walls, light fixtures hanging precariously from the ceiling, and skeletons, everywhere. Bodies upon bodies, obviously left abandoned for decades, if not more. And among them, over in the viewing area, is Charles’ trademark tweed briefcase, popped open and hanging by one hinge next to one of the bodies. My chest clenches as panic threatens to overcome me.

“What happened? What’s going on?”

Agent Ford furrows her brow in sympathy and takes a step forward, offering out her hand.

“You’ve been asleep for more than sixty-five years, sir. It’s the year twenty-nineteen.”

~

I look around at the bustling morning crowds mulling about Buchanan Street, all headed into unfamiliar shops or dining in any number of foreign-inspired restaurants. Much of what I see is a strange conglomerate of futuristic architecture, a city I’d hardly recognize if it weren’t for the familiar icons such as St Mary’s, Central Station, or the City Chambers. In spite of the madness happening in my life right now, though, I have to admit the smells pull my mind away from it all, tantalizing my appetite, and I realize that I’m insufferably hungry. I mean, why shouldn’t I be? I haven’t eaten in over half a century.

“You wouldn’t mind if we popped into one of those little caffs, do you?” I ask, taking every effort to keep the drool in my mouth.

Agent Ford smiles and nods. “Don’t worry, sir. That’s why we’re here.”

I put my hands in my jacket, temporarily consoled, and look across the way at an old-style church tucked between two towering residential blocks. It’s almost comically out of place, but admittedly soothing for some reason, as if it were placed there just for me, reminding me that even things wizened by time still have their place in this unfamiliar modern era.

“What happened?” I ask Agent Ford earnestly. “With the lab, that is. What went wrong?”

Agent Ford seems reluctant to answer, but eventually she caves in—despite a warning look from Agent Knight. “Your program was quite the black operation, Doctor Martin. As it happens, your friend Charles Baker was the only one in the government who knew about it. The day of your demonstration, there were several undercover Soviet agents present that took advantage of his secretive trip to witness your project, and they assassinated him, along with everyone else present. With no record of where he went or what his undisclosed plans were, his disappearance remained a mystery until just recently.”

“How did you find out, then? How did you find me?” I ask, still struggling to process everything she’s saying.

“The Russians recently declassified a batch of documents from the fifties—from your time, I mean. One of them was a set of hypothetical simulations that involved the assasination of high-level targets on British soil. Turns out, one of the simulations was based on an actual event, the one I’ve been describing to you. We ran it by the Russian Consulate, and while they didn’t explicitly acknowledge their involvement, it was clear we were on the right track with our speculations.”

“Russian Consulate? Are the Soviets friends, then?”

“Friends? Oh, no. Not exactly,” she chuckles. “But let’s say we’re in-between tensions at the moment.”

I nod, confused, but unwilling to press it further.

My mind quickly drifts to the flood of distractions vying for my attention, and I turn my head from side to side in an effort to soak everything in.

“So, tell me, Agent Ford, what did I miss? What’s the world been up to while I’ve been frozen away in the middle of Scotland?”

“Aha, not much, probably,” she says with an infectious smile. “You missed the Vietnam War, the Troubles in Ireland, the War in Iraq, Afghanistan, the dissolution of almost every British colony and territory, the rise of international terrorism, the destruction of our environment, Brexit.”

“Brexit?” I ask, confused.

“Nevermind. Don’t worry about that.”

“And of course,” Agent Knight cuts in, speaking for the first time, “England hasn’t medalled in the World Cup since hosting it in 1966.”

“Excuse me,” Agent Ford says, her face awash with disapproval, “but the women took bronze in 2015.”

“Ah, there’s a women’s World Cup, then?” I say, surprised.

Agent Ford nods and nudges Agent Knight in the side. “Sure is, and I have to say, our girls are playing much better than the guys right now.”

I concede a small chuckle, but internally, my stomach rejects the thought of laughing at anything Agent Ford has just said. Discouragement runs rampant inside my heart, and I scramble to recover the pieces of my spirit that are crumbling before my eyes. What kind of world did I wake up to? Perhaps it was naive of me, but I would have expected there to be huge strides forward in democracy, in unity, the end of war, the birth of human exploration on a cosmic scale. What I see now is frankly rather apathetic, superficial even, a demonstration of humanity at its most basal form. I give credit to the inhabitants of Earth for not annihilating themselves with atomic weapons, but it seems they’ve done everything short of it.

We turn into a cafe, and Agent Ford tells us to find a seat while she gets breakfast for us, something that dramatically halts my downward emotional spiral. There’s a mix of all sorts of smells in the air, and I can almost taste the sausage, the eggs and beans, a side of tomatoes, toast, and—most importantly—tea. A few minutes later, Agent Ford returns to our table and plops what looks like a glazed turd down in front of me.

“What in the hell is this?” I say, affronted by the gingham paper-wrapped ‘breakfast’ before me.

“It’s a donut,” she explains, oblivious to my offense as she takes a bite of her own turd.

“A donut? Where’s the sausage? Where’s the tea?”

Agent Ford looks up from her donut and wipes her mouth with a paper napkin. “Oh, I could get some tea if you want.”

She begins to stand but I wave her off and grab the pastry with sad disappointment. “No, no, it’s too late. What has happened to your generation? What happened to the sanctity of a proper British meal? This makes me feel like I’m back in Ethiopia getting my tinned rations, except instead of the Italians, I’m battling indigestion.”

Agent Knight actually chuckles a little, and Agent Ford gives an apologetic shrug. “It’s an American thing, I think.”

I scoff. “Makes sense. Leave it to the Americans to find a way to ruin even a good meal.” As we eat, my curiosity begins to get the better of me, and I gain the confidence to ask more questions, despite my initial discouragement. “What about space travel? Have we made it to Mars? Farther?”

“Well, we made it to the Moon,” Agent Ford says. “The Americans, that is. We haven’t quite made it there ourselves. Though I heard there might be some cooperation for a possible return, and we might even get to Mars within the next decade or two.”

With that, I fall silent and keep to myself for the remainder of the meal.

My work was supposed to enable the human race to break the bonds keeping us on Earth. The whole reason I went under in the first place was to advance science in the hope that future generations might use it to better themselves. To know, now, that it was all in vain, that humanity chose a path completely foreign to my reasoning, well, it puts me in a very bad place, indeed.

~

After World War II, humanity swore to unify, to never again let any issue come between us. Sure, it wasn’t long before that vision of utopia faded, but there was at least the hope of globalized harmony. From what I see, though, that hope has shifted, or become lost in the noise of everyday life. We could have probably gone further in science and in exploration, but we’ve watered down our dreams with things like ICBMs, politics, Keeping up with the Kardashians, and something called kale chips, I believe.

Still, I guess the world didn’t end, as I might have predicted before going under. No matter how bad things seem to get, Earth keeps spinning. We overcome. We adapt. We thrive. Because that’s what we do. Because we far prefer evolution, however small, to its alternative.

My Dearest Anne,

I made it. They tell me you died in 1980. In my mind that is nearly 30 years from now. In reality it is nearly 40 years ago. It is difficult to keep it all straight. I wish you were here.

Who else can I speak to about the future and the in-between world we had no intention of discovering? They assigned me a friend to speak to, they call him a therapist. It helps. A little. It was his idea to write to some of my old colleagues and family. So here we are.

And where are we? It’s still Chicago, the same where just a different when. I wish you could see it! It’s nothing like we imagined, but it is still magnificent. No flying automobiles or visits from outer space. Really, everything just got faster. There are more cars, people don’t really share them anymore. And this fascination with miniaturized contraptions that light up: cell phones and computers and monitors, they call them. It is the culmination of the work of some of my colleagues and incredible to see, why just the power sources alone would be beyond the imaginations of most of our research team.

There is more. So much more. I cannot bear to put it into this first letter. Call this an experiment, an attempt to steady my constitution and bring down my heart rate so I can function. I must function. I must warn them of the in-between. When I learned of your passing I was devastated, but now I wonder, yes, I know, it is for the best.

In sincerity of heart,

Your Mitch

_____________

To:

Denton Marshall, Project Leader;

Albert Einstein, Co-Chair;

Wolfgang Pauli, Special Consultant;

Robert Ettinger, Special Consultant;

and the rest of the Advanced Research Team at the University of Chicago;

In 1950, after the great victory over communism, our honorable congress established a secret committee and an abundance of funding following the scientific breakthroughs of Drs. Pauli and Ettinger. We were tasked with sending a man to the future through the process of cryogenic freezing, for science, discovery, and research. And to beat the Russians, who were pursuing the same and who did steal some of our research, as you all know. Or knew. You are gone now. I am here. We did succeed. To a point.

I would like to report to you about the future. However, there is a more pressing matter, and as this letter is to dead men, I presume you will have the patience to wait until my next correspondence to learn all about the wonders of nanotechnology, lasers, and Uber. I have delayed long enough. To the point:

I vaguely recall the discussions (a la lectures) of Dr. Pauli and Dr. Einstein regarding the potential of parallel universes and the possibility of the cryogenically frozen body not being a strong enough vessel to contain the metaphysical being. It sounded like theoretical hogwash at the time. I fully anticipated sleeping, then waking to the future. Or dying, if our math was wrong. Dying would have been preferable.

I did sleep. For a time. I cannot say how long. And then I awoke to blackness. Not just dark, which is empty, but blackness, a physical thing like a mist, but impenetrable. It more than surrounded me, it was inside of me as well, and I was part of it, like a patch in a greater quilt, I belonged to this blackness. It had a sound, like the distant humming of a bomber flying high above. It was mechanical, I’m sure of it, but it was aware, conscious, feeling. It found me in itself, as if I were a parasite occupying a small area on a greater being, an irritant but not a threat. I was inspected by it. I could not see, though my eyes were open, there simply was no light in that place, but I know what I felt. It moved me around, jostling me to several positions, like a boy getting a good look at an army man toy. Just like on the outside, it also observed me on the inside. My organs were pushed around, my skin bubbled, my very bones were embraced. The pain was exquisite, maddening, and I was powerless. I could not make a sound, though I screamed myself hoarse. I don’t believe there was air or space, there was just the blackness. I felt that even if I could board a plane or dirigible and fly higher than any airship has ever gone I would still not see a space that this creature was occupying. I would still be within the creature. It did not occupy space, it filled every bit of its universe.

There is more. So much more. I will tell you, but I cannot bear it just now. My therapist, a Dr. Lazowski, is coaching me along. I get upset, you see, and his team administers an injection, some calming agent.

We were right to be afraid, boys. Very right, indeed.

Your Colleague,

Mitchell Davies

___________________

To: James Davies

Father,

You were right. We shouldn’t have. You told me God intended a man’s lifetime, and it should not be stretched beyond respect. God is real. I know this, now. And so is his antithesis. I think I met the latter. There is no hope.

Mitch

Someone told me that you and I were a sure thing, that we had the chance and that we would look good together. This wasn't news to me, because I knew it from the moment I laid my eyes on you. I remember because I sought you out a few months after we had met. Every moment felt right and time spent with you was magical. Yes, magic, that's what it felt like.

The walks we took under the night sky, talking about nothing, laughing at what we'd said, then looking forward to the next time we'd do it again and the moments in between felt like something pulled out of a good romance novel. You were the reason I smiled when my phone rang and I saw your name. You were the reason I looked up at the stars. You were the reason I fell in love with rainy days. Slowly, very slowly you became the reason I put down words on paper.

My first muse. Perhaps my last, yes I should think so. For a moment we were a sure thing, but then that moment is gone. Blown away by the wind of change, never to return.

When I fell in love with someone else I found myself thinking it should've been you. I wanted it to be you, but it wasn't. And even though my heart lay with him, a small part of it longed for you. My heart broke a few years later and he was gone and miraculously I had forgotten about you except on the days when it rained, and those weren't many. The stars didn't seem all that beautiful anymore. Everything was bland until the day you came back a year ago and we tried to recapture the moment, lord knows we did but the spark that had once shone so brightly had dimmed till it finally died.

I think on some days, that we should have gone out for that coffee.

I haven’t lived at home with my mom in over 30 years. I’ve been married nearly 29 years, I am the mother of an adult child…and yet I still call my mother when I get home from being out somewhere. It’s a small thing that will save her a sleepless night imagining all the ways I might be dead.

It’s not unusual for me to receive a frantic call about an accident on a highway I may have driven once – “Honey, I heard there was an accident on Route 9. I know you drive that way sometimes…Are you okay?”

“Um, yes, Mom. I’m at work.”

“Oh. Right. Okay, darling. Talk to you later!”

Or perhaps a tornado touched down in a town…in a nearby state.

“Honey, they just said on the news that a tornado touched down in Pennsylvania. You’re not going out, right?”

“No, we’re in for the evening. We’re fine, though. I think it was 500 miles from here….”

And forget if I am taking her out somewhere and she’s waiting for me to pick her up. I can never be late lest I arrive to find her in a heap, weeping at the foot of a police officer painstakingly explaining that her daughter is late and must be lying dead in a car wreck somewhere. Every Single Time I arrive at her home she says, “Thank God! I was worried something happened to you.”

All this to say, it should come as no surprise that I have inherited the morbidly active, fear-inducing breath-constricting imagination of my mother. Indeed, I suspect mine is her imagination to the tenth power. She should be calm and worry-free for her child, me, is a docile, security-seeking, rule following being who will almost always choose the safe avenue and eschew the dangerous side streets. I drive the speed limit and stay in the right lane. I am not inclined to seek adventure. Danger gives me hives.

I, however, gave birth to the wide-eyed, curious child who refused to walk until he could run full speed downhill into traffic. This child became the young man who jumped out of planes repeatedly – once was not enough – in order to obtain his skydiving license; who went to Thailand to swim with whale sharks while getting his scuba license; who, when his dad said, Let’s go trekking, went online to buy plane tickets to Nepal.

They went to Nepal. They called me from Mt. Everest to ask me to Google what was the worst thing that could happen if you got altitude sickness (you DIE), because their guide had it and they were trying to decide if they should continue WITHOUT him to their final destination (Everest Base Camp) despite EVERYONE’S warning that that was not a good idea in any way. Is it at all surprising that when I did not hear from them after that, and my calls went straight to voice mail the next day…and the day after that…and the day after that…that I KNEW they had decided to continue, that they had gotten lost, that they had gotten altitude sickness, that one or both of them had fallen off a cliff and was lying somewhere dead and unreachable while the other suffered alive, cold, full of guilt and wondering how in the world he would tell me the other was dead? (Spoiler alert: They did not die.)

On day four, I dialed their number every half an hour and listened to the operator tell me they could not be reached. (I screamed and cried, knowing they were unreachable because they were freezing to death lying under 20 feet of snow due to an avalanche.) At 5 am, it finally rang. My husband picked up. I burst into tears. The phone, he said, had frozen. But they were fine now. They had climbed up and down, had the best beer of their lives at the bottom and my son was unavailable because he was getting a massage. I accused him of lying and hiding the truth that my son was unconscious or dead. He assured me he was fine and promised to have him call after his massage.

What an adventure we had, he said. He had tried to convince my son that they should give up and try again another time, but he lost that argument. (Not sure how hard he tried to win it.) They left the guide behind and continued their ascent. They walked 12-14 hours a day because they had a plane to catch (they hadn’t scheduled enough days to actually make the journey in a normal time frame). They started leaving baggage behind at different inns in an effort to make the going easier…as they both got a touchof altitude sickness (my son in the head, my husband in the lungs.) Oh, but it was so exciting to see snow leopard prints although they never saw the actual leopard (THANK GOD) and it was so cool when they were eyed by some mountain goat-like creature that, judging from the picture they took, wondered exactly why they were on his mountain.

And why was the goat confused? Because they had made their own path away from the Everest Base Camp path to some other mountain. So…they scaled the side of the mountain (ROPES? WHAT ROPES??!!) to get back to the right path they could see…across the abyss. Eventually, they reached Everest Base Camp. And passed it by, thinking it couldn’t possibly be it. Too mundane. Must be that place up there. (Base Camp 1). Note: Most climbers spend 4-8 WEEKS at Everest Base Camp (at 17,598 feet) to acclimatize to the altitude. Base Camp 1 is at 19,000 feet.

You can’t be here! Some employee screeched at them. Clearly, they did not belong: You need a reservation, a license, oxygen, tents, food…once you get that high. More likely than not you also have a GUIDE, a group, a Sherpa. My son and my husband had the clothes on their backs and each other. I’m sure the employee thought they were out of their minds. (Don’t you? I did.) You must go back! He screamed. They rested a few minutes so my husband could try to breathe and then they started the eternal descent. Since my son’s head was exploding, they had to walk down some 10 hours until his head stopped throbbing.

They didn’t die, but they did do so many of the things I had imagined. Is it any wonder I always presume the worst?

All of the above is merely backstory. What you need to know before reading the real story.

My son competes in Ironmen competitions. He has completed two full events at Lake Placid, New York (2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, and a 26.2-mile run). Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is a marathon after a 112-mile bike. And a 2.4-mile swim. He has completed six half Ironman competitions (1.2 mile-swim, 56-mile bike, and a 13.1-mile run).

I, like you, think he is leaning towards nuts, but I do find it motivating to see so many people, some as old as 75, challenging themselves to do something that is physically and mentally very difficult. It is a great achievement and though I often start the race thinking, oh, maybe I could do this, I always end up with, but why would I deliberately force myself to endure so much pain? My 5K at the gym three times a week is plenty hard.

So, one weekend last June, my husband and I went to see my son participate in a half Ironman competition in Connecticut. He had done this particular course before and had done a lot of training and other events in the meantime, so he expected to see significant improvement from his performance a year earlier.

The day started with heavy fog. You couldn’t see more than 50 meters in the water. First, they delayed the start. Then they shortened the swim and delayed the start again to give the officials time to remake the swim course. This was exciting because it meant he could swim full out for 750 meters, get a fast time and start the bike less tired than normal. It was great.

His transition time was one of his best and then he was off on the bike. We used the tracking device on our phone to keep abreast of his progress while we had breakfast. It stopped tracking him at mile 29. When we thought he should be finishing within half an hour or so, we went to the bike finish to await his arrival.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

My husband started getting nervous. “He should be here.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “Perhaps he had more difficulty on the climbs than he anticipated.”

We waited.

My husband went to the event officials and asked if his bike was back in transition, just in case we had missed him returning.

Nope. And his running shoes were there, waiting for him. “Just go watch the race. He’ll show up,” the less than sympathetic man said.

After some 2 hours pass the time we expected him, my husband had questioned the officials again (they radioed others along the route and no one had any news about bib 313), the on-site police officers, firemen and medical representatives. No reports about bib 313.

We figured, if he had fallen or had a flat tire, someone would have noticed. Therefore, he must be in a port-a-potty, sick, unconscious and alone with no one aware of his dilemma. Alternatively, he had lost control near the lake we had seen on our drive across the bike course the previous day, and fallen in, unable to do anything to help himself because his shoes were clipped into the bike. Or, he lost control and skidded into nearby woods, crashed into a tree knocking himself unconscious and was laying, bleeding somewhere where no one could see him.

I stood alone trying desperately to remain calm and not cry, while watching the crowd dwindle as rider after rider rolled in.

My husband ran around the park trying to get someone to look for our son or tell us what might have happened.

Had he been able to ask the returning athletes, however, they would have said, oh yeah, I saw him. That’s the guy RUNNING WITH HIS BIKE.

What?

Well, it turns out near mile 28, he got what he thought was a flat tire, but when he went to change the inner tube, he realized it was a damaged tire, not the inner tube. He rode on the flat to the aid station.

“Do you have a tire? he asked.

“No,” they said.

“Can I leave the bike here and just run?” he asked.

“No,” they said. “You have to keep the bike with you.”

“Can I run with the bike?” he asked.

“I guess so,” they said.

And so, he started to run. Barefoot. With his bicycle.

Other riders offered him food and drink as they passed by. He just asked that if they saw bike tech, let them know he needed help.

One guy offered him socks since his, by that time, were all torn up.

He stopped at two more aid stations for hydration – no bike tech to be found – and kept running.

A spectator saw him running and called his wife who was a few miles up the path and asked her to bring out a pair of running shoes for a guy who was running barefoot with his bike.

She did.

That was mile 46.

At mile 50, after running almost 22 miles, he happened upon bike tech. They had a tire. They replaced his (took the Good Samaritan’s running shoes) and he biked the last six miles. He came in smiling at me. I have never been so happy to see that smile.

Then, he sped through transition, put on his running shoes, and ran the 13.1 mile run course.

With blisters the size of walnuts on his feet.

He finished the race in 7 hours and 23 minutes: two and a half hours longer than he anticipated. But really, in the grand scheme of things, he can’t complain (I can): He finished.

The slogan of Ironman is “Anything is possible.” I often think my son lives that phrase (frequently to my chagrin, it’s true.) In a recent blog post, he wrote: “My love [of Ironman] stems from my desire to push myself both physically and mentally, to prove to myself and those around me that limits do not exist, that impossible is just an excuse, and that we can achieve great things, the greatest things, if only we have the courage to find our fire, burn off the cold and light up the dark.”

Oh.

And so, I bite my tongue, pray a lot, and (try to) hide my ever-present anxiety and (over) active imagination as I watch him light up the world around him...and give thanks to be a part of that world.

and to the chalkboard, the mathematician said

while calculating his days ahead

blinking eyes that sit and stare

im seeing numbers i didnt know were there

you watch the way his hands go round

solving the universe without a sound

to making time a lullaby

an alphabet, to butterfly

he works the magic in his head

from all the books that kept him fed

but slow, his brain begins to starve

from all of knowledge, he cannot carve

he only knows the language seen

upon the board, so crisp and clean

with blinking eyes that sit and stare

im seeing numbers i know aren't there.

I was sitting outside in the backyard relaxing after a long day. There was a soft breeze blowing, you know the kind that feels like its caressing your skin. It was a quiet night and for the first time, the neighbor's dog wasn't barking. Something must have moved above me because I looked up. That is when I saw it. I saw the moon for the first time in weeks, big and luminous in the night sky and it made me think of you.