ICE GIFT

Chapter one

Every spring ancient icebergs came to these shores to “die”. They were huge, those floating icy mountains, even if you considered only the part you saw and not the part hidden underwater. The icebergs never approached the shore; they stopped at some distance, in the shallow water, their underwater parts scraping the seafloor, crowded the horizon, and slowly melted in the warm sunlight releasing frozen things, ancient trash mostly, as they got smaller and smaller.

A gaggle of boys and girls took their places on the cliff. You wouldn’t distinguish them from a flock of sea birds unless you came close. Wind ruffled their hair and rugged clothes just like it would ruffle bird feathers. The kids’ high pitched voices resembled seagull chatter, too.

They came to greet the icebergs, some alone, most in little groups. Clashing and crushing sounds the ice mountains made rolled over the shores like endless thunder making it hard to hear anything else.

“Why do they come?!” shouted Elie though the noise.

“I don’t know!” replied Rikter in his loudest voice and, clinging to the slippery icy cliff, moved closer to the girl.

“Did you ask the elders?” Continued Elie, relieved that now she didn’t have to scream anymore to be heard.

“I did,” nodded the boy; his long, unruly hair fell on his face as he did that, “but our tribe doesn’t know much. What about yours?”

“Same,” Elie shrugged. “Even my grandma, the wise Kalare, doesn’t remember anything. “The wandering ice just comes, nobody knows why”.

“But we’ll find out, right?” there was a faint hope in Rikter’s voice.

“Right,” Elie assured him, “we just have to watch the ice closely”.

Chapter two

Many times icebergs had come to die under the sun since then. Every time took its toll, killing the kids’ curiosity bit by bit in a slow but steady manner. Ten springs later, only two kids of the initial group kept coming here. Elie and Rikter. Two tired birds, stragglers without a flock, perched on a bare cliff, winds ruffling their rags and braided hair like feathers. They were adults now.

“Why do you keep coming, Rik?” Said Elie sadly, leaning closer to his ear. She didn’t want to shout. “I have a dream, it calls to me. And you, you just look at the ice”.

The young man was silent for a long time, and the silence mixed oddly with the thunder-like sounds of the icebergs.

“I’m here because of you, Elie,” he said at last. “I want to be with you. Forever. Until death do us part. Because I love you”.

Elie didn’t answer. Her gaze drifted down following the cold black waves carrying countless pieces of crushed ice.

“You don’t have anything to say to me at all?” asked Rikter with a bitter smile.

“I don’t know what to say, Rik,” Elie spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “I’ve never thought… I always saw you as a friend…”

“Elders say good friendship can grow into true love,” said the guy reassuringly. He was not going to accept no for an answer. “I think that’s right, Elie… Elie?”

Elie didn’t hear him anymore. She stood at the edge of the cliff and stared at the shore littered with broken ice and trash. Following her gaze, he looked down too.

There was an unusually big ice shard below. The sea had thrown it on the sand some time ago and kept disturbing it since, shifting it and polishing its surface with every touch of the waves.

“There is something inside it!” exclaimed Elie, pointing down with her marble-white finger.

“Hm…” Rikter frowned and scratched his chin thoughtfully. “You have good eyes. I wouldn’t have noticed”.

Hungry birds were already circling above the ice shard with a dark core. They had even better eyes than Elie.

The girl came down from the cliff as fast as a squirrel and hurried along the sandy shore filled with debris and garbage drenched in cold water. Rikter followed her. By the time he managed to catch up with the girl she was already standing on her knees before the ice shard, her hand pressed against it.

“There is a man inside! I see his face…” Elie’s voice was so quiet from astonishment that Rikter barely heard her though the shore noise.

But that was true: there was a human face, pale and motionless, under the milky white ice.

“What are you doing? He’s dead…”

Stubborn as an unruly kid, Elie kept rummaging through the shore garbage gathering torn nets, ropes, and everything else she could tie up and wrap around the ice shard. Then she tried to pull at it, obviously inclined to move the ice gift away from the water.

“Step aside,” said Rikter in a peremptory fashion. “Let me do it”.