THE ONLY WAY OUT IS THROUGH
When I was eighteen years old I went to Europe. I went to Europe because I was worried that I wasn’t smart enough to go to college, and I wanted to drive a wedge between myself and my future. There was a school in the South of Germany where Canadians and Americans and Germans and Australians went for a year to nominally study the Bible and to practically study skiing and drinking Absinthe in the thick German forests. I met many wonderful people at that school, but there were a few in particular who scared me. I went to Europe because I was afraid of the future, and also because I thought that maybe if I could see the basilicas and sleep in the train depots and watch the Rhine move in its ancient way, that somehow I would be ready for the future when it arrived. I was going to Europe to test myself. The scary ones were going to Europe to test Europe. Maybe it’s the reason why Americans in particular have such bad reputations over there. Some people go to Europe to see Europe. Some go to see if the cobblestone streets that held up the chariots of the Romans could also hold the crushing weight of their youth.
In the winter the snow came and settled into the corners of the windows and the places the rooftops come together. Whoever wrote about Christmas first, at least in the Coca-Cola-Santa way we know it to be now, I suspect lived in the South of Germany at some point during the turn of the century. The lake froze over and the markets opened. It was a break in the test I was giving myself. The feeling of the winter in the South of Germany is that we have all been trying to prove ourselves enough, and that maybe being together is good enough for now.
The scary kids drank all the Glühwein in the Christmas markets. Glühwein gives you the warm sensation of swimming, and I could see them floating through the candled wreaths and hanging lights in the markets, dipping their mugs in the vats of it as they went. I tried to drink too much Glühwein also, but it didn’t agree with me. I didn’t feel like I was swimming, just hot and full of wine. So I gave up.
In the countryside near the school was a forest with a lake. It was a small lake with a stream running past but the stream and the lake never come together. There were thin Spruce and Beech trees and larger Pines coming up through the canopy of the others. In the winter the lake froze and the students made trails in the snow to the lake. The Canadians would skate across the surface looking proud, holding their shoulders back and stopping quickly to make a cloud from the ice. One day the scary ones came with a splitting maul to cut a hole in the ice. The hole was two feet across and the ice was three or four inches thick. When the first hole was finished the scary ones walked across the lake, twenty five feet away and they cut a second hole. The second hole was closer to the shore and the ice was thicker over there. One of the scary ones stripped down to his underwear and one of the other scary ones tied a rope to his foot.
“This way we can pull you out if you get lost.” The second one said. And the first scary one jumped in the hole. I remember that a wave of water came out of the hole and soaked through the snow. I could see the ice better after the water came out. The grey ice was scratched from the ice skates. The second scary one was letting out rope, he was looking down into the hole but there was nothing in the hole. A minute later the first one came out of the hole on the other side by the shore where the ice was thicker. Now there was a rope running under the ice.
A few days later we came back to the lake again but it had snowed during the night and we had to trample down the path to get back. The lake had another six inches of snow, and the scary ones had to kick around to find the rope. The rope was frozen in the ice where the hole had healed, you could see where the hole was but now it was ice again, frozen over like a gunshot wound. The scary ones opened the holes with the splitting maul again, careful not to chop the rope, and the second scary one jumped in the hole and swam to the other hole. He tied the rope to his hand because he didn’t want to get pulled out backward if he got lost.
“Now you can follow the rope.” He said. “But it is cold under there and it’s hard to move your arms and legs.”
“What does it look like?” I asked him.
"At first it's blue.” He said. “At first, blue, and then it’s white and then it’s dark.”
“How dark?” I asked.
“It’s as dark as you can think of.” He said. “But it’s only dark for a little while. If you keep going you can see the second hole. Once you see the second hole it’s white and then it’s blue and they you are done.”
I took my clothes off and was standing by the first hole in my underwear.
When I jumped in the hole everything was blue. The shock was so complete that my brain didn’t register the cold, just that it was an impact. It was an impact like hitting your head is an impact. All of my muscles went tight and my heart pulled up into my throat. I started kicking and swimming in the direction of the second hole.
Ten or fifteen seconds later everything was dark. It was dark in a completeness. I could hear the ice shifting and bending. I could see and hear the bubbles moving toward the surface but I could see nothing. Pure and total darkness in every direction. The rope was slack and getting twisted around my ankles. My strokes were beginning to lose efficiency as my muscles tensed. I could feel my heart rate slowing and everything was black. My legs felt like there were rubber bands between them, I was slowing and rising until finally, my head hit the ice. I wanted to surface and take a breath, but the dark ice was there, holding me under.
“You need to turn around.” A voice in my head was saying. “Go back.” You know where the first hole is. The second hole could be anywhere.”
“But the rope is coming out of the second hole.I can’t swim against the rope.” I said. I could feel panic rising in my chest. The kind where I was needing to gasp but there was no air to gasp.
“You are lost.” Said the voice. “Go back.” I closed my eyes and kept swimming.
When I opened my eyes again I could see the white coming through, and then beyond I could see the blue. The blue was reflecting off the bottom here in a circle where the water was more shallow. When I put my hand through the opening of the second hole I felt fingers close around my wrist, and then I was standing on the ice again and the scary ones were standing around me. They weren’t as scary anymore. I think, maybe I realized that we were testing the same things all along.
“Did you want to turn around?” One of them asked.
“Yes.” I said.
“But then you remembered that the only way out is through.”
“The only way out is through.” I said.
Tyson Motsenbocker tyson.motsenbocker@gmail.com