E2K: a journal for the new literary paradigm

That's the way I envisioned it: me holding the pick while he heaves the hammer and together we cleave the space between the teeth in a smile for our favorite philosopher's face. In a blue ice floe in Antarctica. Quick, the Polaroid. Blue ice shivers on my gloves. Blue ice shivers on the sleeves of his walrus parka. We grin at each other, past the icicles dripping off our noses.

We drink soup from mugs in bed and spill alphabet noodles on the picture of the killer whale. We project shadow puppets by the light of the kerosene lamp. All this in our caravan that smells of olive oil, soap, and loved-in sheets.

Outside the mules stomp and sputter. We give them one last bucket of warm oatmeal. After all, they walked all the way to the foot of the alpine meadows. Such good mules. His boots, lustrous and quick, whoosh out the flap of the canvas door. I look at the shadows that the lamp casts of my extended arm and propped up knees. I fall asleep to his murmured thanks to the mules.

We have lamb stew cooked over the campfire, then crawl into bed to listen to the wolves. He turns the radio to Cab Calloway, and we paint each other's faces. We're mimes fleeing the law. Watch only our moves--words are for those we left behind. One fugitive makes for running scared, but two make an adventure. We draw up plans to carve a castle for two out of ice.

At first we wake together, each of us gathering up our tools and trudging off to the site. He says he's just going to make a few cuts, rough it out at first, then I can help. But he begins rising before me, going off without breakfast. From the bottom of the valley I hear the ringing of his pickaxe, like the ringing of a crystal bell.

I try to busy myself around the camp. I take short nature walks and identify all the surrounding flowers. One day I get antsy and unhitch one of the mules, riding her around in circles near the river. She slips on dark mud and we both get scraped up. That night I cry when he washes my scrapes and winds gauze around my ankle.

This goes on for some time, him marching off at dawn to work on what has become his ice castle, not ours. I work on my pressed flower collection.

One day he returns to camp very sore but elated--a snow leopard came within six feet of him! The leopard sniffed at a pile of tools, glared at him with a garnet eye, then disappeared into the drifts. He says the color of the leopard's breast is the color of mine, and strokes my neck.

I jump up, throw my flower collection into the fire, and go to cry myself to sleep in the caravan. He sits at the fire, drinking soup until very late.

The next day, when he climbs down from the ice castle, I am gone. I have to find the snow leopard.

Alix McMurray lives in rural Missouri with her husband and numerous pets. Previously a therapist in the big city, she now devotes herself to writing and animal welfare.