^{Atlantic Ocean near the Faroe Islands / kallerna / CC BY-SA 4.0}

McPhee, William James. “Frieze.” Dawning Times. January, 1965. p.5

Fluid engorges my lungs, yet still I gasp and spasm, further drawing the sea within.

I AM DYING.

My limbs flail uselessly against the pillowing deep, as I drink in naught but dark and doom. Cold saps my strength, draining it from my enduring corpse into the waters about.

I CANNOT WIN.

The night wars on, unaware of my futile dance.

Clouds shatter, and spill their hold upon my rapidly cooling frame.

My buoyancy is reduced with my spirits as my sea level slips downward.

I AM UNDER.

Ensuing waves close me in, wrapping me within their flaccid embrace, cupping me ever closer to their mother’s silten bosom. Desert fathoms welcome me to the chilled depths of their disregard for my twenty-odd years of service to consumption.

I AM FREEZING.

Sharp angles begin their juggernaut substitution of my previously rounded constitution, splintering the natural walls and barriers established. Sensation escapes me, my extremities spasming now solely due to history’s remembered stride. Shadow engulfs me, sealing me into its meandering dark. I see, for a fashion, before the ice interrupts the recording of my sight.

I AM CAULED.

After that, it becomes nay but fractals and flashes of the mind. Some section of me feels it should be reflecting on past faux pas, sweet remembrances of my daughter and wife. It seizes a few choice cuts, before it, too, succumbs to solidification. Reflecting on a brief indiscretion upon the honour of my sole broodling for the incalculable gulf of time, I only register the indeterminate echoes of the buffeting ocean’s hold upon my Arctic tomb.

I AM ADRIFT.

In a miasma of sensation and locale, feeling only whence the gentle currents from warmer

climes swirl about my casket, channeling indistinct furrows in my unyielding frigid carriage. The lukewarm caress after such a vacancy of sense is now my only lover, waking me from my slumber to writhe unmovingly at the blinkering cacophony of light bombarding my unflinching graveyard stare into eternity. Half-wakingly, I peer through my chilled eyes to perceive only darkness. Curiously, after a fashion, I note my incessant bobbing among the waves has ceased, replaced by a slow, constant troll of ocean about my wint’ry crypt. I AM ALIVE.

What must have been weeks later, I concluded the waters had become noticeably warmer, which in the weeks following, led me to the realization I had become attached to a vagrant iceberg. However, this discovery did not clue me in to the reason I was growing… less cold. Lapses in thought grew progressively shorter, indistinct shapes began forming themselves in the blurry deep. Sense began its slow march back into my body, my memory coalescing gradually, from my earliest onward.

I AM AWAKE.

I remember a time when I was nary ten years old, floating on my belly in the clammy waters off the Liverpool shore, gazing into the sunken wonders below, drifting lazily along the side of Father’s boat, taking in all the facets of the water’s edge. I had always been accomplished at holding my breath whilst swimming, putting my elder brothers through all their paces in any aquatic activities. 

Beginning to ponder going back ashore, I barely hear the muffled shouts preceding a nearby crash as I am lifted bodily out of the water by the shoulders. Spitting a bit of brine out, the water clearing from my eyes reveals to me the cross face of my father framed by the twilight of early evening. The vigorous shaking and cursing bring about the startling revelation that I had been missing for hours, underwater.

I AGE.

It is oddly lukewarm in the bow of the vessel I have made my stowaway upon, as I huddle silently betwixt a formation of boxes. I hear the muted calls and tell-tale rumbling heralding the ship leaving moor and embarking upon the wash. Nibbling at my sparse store of fragile cheese, and wondering at the thrills awaiting me abroad, I scarcely hear the deckhands before they are already dragging me out into the harsh light of morning by my ankles. 

The sailors throw me onto the deck with a howl to their mates, who ring me within a wall of jeering hoots and cruel scowls. The fore section of the circle’s abrupt silence spreads through the remaining crew like tinder, as it parts for a rakish seaman I can’t help but know.

It is the Captain. Dressed in a sharply pressed sailcloth reefer of a curious cut and fiery trim, with an odd cap cocked slightly upon his crown, he appraises me with a quick glance and flash of gemmy teeth. 

He makes a quick swooping motion with his hand as he turns away, his crew hoisting me above their heads before depositing me rudely into the starboard waters. Little did I know, then, that my matching pace swimming alongside the ship would engage me the employ of the nefarious Green Sally, whom in my few years of service I would come to answer to as The Captain Salaco Nithervoud, the most wanted Strangeness pirate of the Seven Spheres. 

Back home in England, I would never have dreamt of seeing so many impossible vistas, from the molten islands of Mercury to the pleasure moons of Venus, where a close call with a phosphorous nymph drove me back to Old Blighty and into the arms of my soon-to-be wife.

Much to the delight and relief of my parents, I brought home Alice with babe in belly to take up shipbuilding with my brother Tom and purchase a cosy home abreast them both, using a handful of Martian orichalcum I had been saving. Inevitably, staring out over the ocean for so many days drew me back into its thrall. This time, however, I sought more mundane service alongside my brothers with a merchant vessel taking supplies to the Arctic circle and back. 

Leaving my beloved wife and young Elisabeth at home, I embarked for the foreign shifting shores beyond the Nordic lands. The radiating heavens of the ardent polar regions were truly one of the most glorious sights to be had on the globe; but after a time, it made me pine for the awesome scenes I had experienced outside of this sphere. After stopping off at Iceland and Grimsey on our way to Thule, we encountered the most fearsome father of all ice storms, and the turning point in the story of my life.

Next thing I remember is the freezing cold,

Water reaching up just to swallow me whole.

Ice in the rigging and howling wind,

Shock to my body as we tumbled in.

Then my brothers and the others are lost at sea,

I alone am returned to tell thee.

Hidden in ice for a century,

To walk the world again.

Lord, have mercy on the Frozen Man.

— James Taylor, “The Frozen Man”

Sylvan Lingo hails from the insubstantial township of Quishnam, and has a deep, abiding regard for the unique weirdness of Eastern Washington.

Instagram: @‌SylvanLingo