#103 Cold Into Darkness

by Michael Doran

The coldness knocked his breath away at first. Unable to breathe, and struggling under water, he felt his energy fading quickly.

The ice had seemed so solid. The green flag was flying, and there were others out on the lake with their little blue sided retractable houses standing out from the whiteness of the lake. He had simply been walking along one of the inlets, trying to make his way out to the center of the lake when suddenly the calm silence was broken by a large cracking noise and in an instant a panic had set in.

He thrashed and struggled and grabbed for the edge of the icy hole, but each attempt ended with a shard of ice in his hands as the whole widened. A million thoughts and calculations flashed across his mind, not his life flashing before his eyes. He knew at this temperature he did not have long. He wondered if anyone had seen him and was racing across the shoreline to reach him, he thought instantly of his wife and three small children as his energy left him and he felt himself sink into darkness.