Warming A Cold Heart
To know the cold is to know warmth
Yoga Kitty
Sanji is showing off her yoga skills. Everyone wants to get in shape after the new year, so get yourself a yoga cat.
…Time for this week’s story…
Warming A Cold Heart
Well into the arduous climb up Mount Everest, Roman and Emmett followed their sherpa closely. Usually, the crunch of snow beneath their boots and howling wind was all the noise in the world. One morning, Emmett approached the sherpa with his map.
“Excuse me, we’re going this way, right?” Emmett pointed. “It looks to me as if we could take this route here and get to the top much faster. It also appears to be the easier route.”
In broken English, the sherpa explained that they could not take that route. The yeti are active during that time of year, and it was not safe to go that way.
“Yeti?” Roman laughed. “Come on, man. With the technology we have these days, if yeti were real there would be proof. Now look, I’ve got a lot of money riding on this climb. My friend and I would like to take this other route. If we find ourselves a yeti, that’s fine, we’ll take a picture and become rich and famous.”
The sherpa explained he had lost friends and would not take another step. Sherpas would not leave someone behind on a mountain unless it was to save their own lives, but this one would go no further unless they went the way he said.
High on his family name, status, as well as his many accomplishments and accolades, Roman would not give in to folklore and fairy tales. Emmett was equally as incensed. He pointed out that the two of them had climbed the greatest mountains in the world. Not only did they both know what they were doing, but if there were magical creatures out in the wild, they would know about it.
The Sherpa would not budge. In the end, they decided to part ways. Roman and Emmett, however, refused to let a sherpa be in charge of their climb.
A powerful snowstorm struck the mountain the following day. They found some rocks and pitched their tent behind them, to absorb the brunt of the wind. They dug their way out of the snow the next day. Bright blue skies and the warm touch of the sunlight welcomed them every morning, no matter how dark and cold the night got.
They hiked and climbed, as careful and responsible as anyone could be. Despite their experience and bravado, a week after they left their sherpa behind, Emmett slipped onto some rocks and broke his leg. He would have fallen if they had not been tied together. Unfortunately, nobody was coming to help, they were too high up. They turned on an emergency locator beacon anyway.
A serious problem, though, was another snowstorm barreling toward them. If they had any hope of making it down, they needed to find shelter. Emmett leaned on Roman, dragging his splint-braced leg through the snow. It was not long before he was exhausted and soon after lost consciousness. Roman dragged Emmett the rest of the way. Icy winds already in a torrent, the storm bore down on them. Roman spotted an outcropping of rocks not far away. He talked to Emmett as he walked to keep his own spirits up.
“We can’t let a mountain kill a couple Princeton boys,” Roman yelled over the wind. “That would be embarrassing. Not to mention, your fiance is going to kill you if you die out here. If one of us deserves to be happy, it’s you. If I were in your shoes, you could just leave me. But, you wouldn’t. You know, Emmett, you really make us all look bad.”
Roman rambled on and on, occasionally checking on Emmett. The snow made it increasingly difficult to see. Unsure where he was, Roman searched for a landmark. One stomp through the snow found no ground beneath. He fell through, Emmett crashing on top of him.
Coughing and in pain, Roman pulled out his flashlight and checked on Emmett. He was fine, but a grunt bubbled from within the cave. Roman spun and shined his light on a wall of white fur. The light moved up to illuminate a face that looked human. The eyes definitely were.
Speechless and terrified, Roman was frozen in fear. Truly, it was a yeti. It looked at him, then Emmett, then at the hole they made. The yeti approached them and scooped up snow from nearby. It compressed the snow between its hands and patched the hole. Then, it gestured for Roman to follow it.
Once away from the wall of snow sealing the cave entrance, the yeti drew a line in the dirt with its finger, then pointed at Roman. Roman understood that was as far as he was allowed to go, and nodded. The yeti walked away and returned with a bundle of wood, dropping it on Roman’s side of the line. Then, it disappeared into the darkness. Roman pulled Emmett over and started a fire, falling asleep soon after.
Roman awoke to warm sunlight on his skin and voices nearby. He looked around in surprise. Emmett was there, along with all their things. His beacon was out of his pack and turned on, and they could see Everest base camp down the mountain. The rescue team rushed to him and Emmett, checking their vitals and asking what happened.
“You’re saying your friend was injured way up there, but your beacon turned on here less than an hour ago. The blizzard’s been going all night. How’d you get down here?”
Roman remembered falling into the cave and looking into the eyes of a yeti. That yeti sheltered them, and somehow, it saved their lives. Roman looked dead at the man who asked and replied with a shrug.
“I don’t know.”