BEN BRIAR

I felt my full hair flutter from the wind. But I could not move. My eyes were closed, but if I opened them my sight would be blocked by white. My mouth was closed but my lips felt the cold ice. Cool water trickled down my forehead. Feeling returned meaning my nerve fibres were operational. My hair could feel heat.

This must have been a nightmare. I knew I had done bad things, so the white couldn't possibly be heaven. So it must have been a dream. More water ran from the space between my forehead and the ice. It flowed down my already wet clothes. Ice. I might be able to pinpoint my situation if I could remember correctly. This could only be done if I asked myself the right questions.

First of all, what do I relate with ice?

The cold. Snow. Antarctica. My father.

Antarctica - what is it?

It's a continent. My workplace.

If it is a workplace, who are my coworkers?

Jennifer is my daughter, I think. And Val is my enemy.

If Val is my enemy, why do I work with him?

Because... he used to be my friend. Now he's some greedy professor who likes to get his mittens on everything. He wants to take my work and show it to the world instead of further researching. He wants it so much, he killed me and Jennifer to get it. He thought us to be dead, but we were merely frozen. The frozen can be defrosted and that is probably what is happening right now, so I should tell myself to be calm.

I am calm. Calm as the sea in which I hear now that my ears have become loose of the freezing binder that has kept me from drowning. I no longer see white because now I face the sun which is a blinding yellow, a more nuanced representation of heaven that plain white could ever be or hope to become. Well, at least for me, it is like looking at the resurrector of my undeserving life.

The sun has not resurrected me just so that I can look into the face of my resurrector. It has breathed into me, new life, and a new understanding of vengeance. Vengeance that I will carry out on the one who has forsaken me and Jennifer, who I remember is surely not my daughter. For even if I had a daughter, she would not compare to how much I care for Jennifer. Fortunately, she is alive as well and I know that because I have been holding her hand in the measure of time it has taken for both of us to defrost.

Our jackets are worn out and the ice has not preserved them as well as it has preserved our two bodies. Patches of snow exist on our layer of clothing which we attempt to brush off. Both of us don't have the energy to do so. We shiver even though it looks to be summer and I pull Jennifer in for a warm embrace. She sobs and it brings me closer to tears. Tears, not because of my proximity to death, but because of Jennifer's near loss of an early life.

We stand atop some kind of iceberg that is crooked in shape, jutting out at several points which would make for a difficult descent.

"Mr Briar, where are we?" she said. I take the time to survey the iceberg. It was surrounded by millions of people in underwear, standing on the water.

"I don't know," I said. "But it's not Earth."

"What do you - " She moves her head away from my jacket and stares at the millions of people as well. She doesn't take long to process it. "Where are we? Why are they looking at us?" Jennifer shivers frantically and I try to hold her in place or she'll risk falling off the top of the iceberg. She instead becomes very fatigued and I have to support her to keep her from fully fainting.

"Come on, Jen. Work with me here. HELP!" I am too exhausted as well to be holding up a body. Our jackets are slippery against each other, so I take mine off and put it on her as an extra coat to keep her body temperature up. The people surrounding the iceberg begin to run up the sides, but it is slick and allows no one to clamber up to us.

We had to make it down ourselves. Our boots aren't designed to descend icebergs, they're made for trekking through snow and such. Our only option was if we slid down. I spun around and looked for the easiest sliding path. The people were making noise down there, shouting advice at us that I could not understand because they were shouting over each other like savages.

I laid my eyes on the most suitable option with less spikes and bumps than any other route we could slide down. I sat us both down, my arms around Jennifer. Then I gave us a nudge towards the slope and I could feel the crisp ice beneath our bottoms. In a small flicker, I felt like an ordinary parent teaching my child the ways of the slide at a local playground. I knew, and Jennifer knew, we were definitely not playing the roles of ordinary lives. Truth be told, we were impeding on the extraordinary.