Torching the Void

I'm cold, so I must keep typing to stay warm. I can't pause, even for a minute. My life is at stake. If I stop to check whether I've written 'steak' or 'stake', or check to make sure which is correct, I could succumb to hypothermia.

I'm like one of those heroic people who get trapped in a ravine and have to eat their own eyebrows to stay alive. I am a hero. Humans are capable of incredible things when their lives are in danger, and I'm no exception. I'm also a human. It would be so easy to give up and shiver and prepare myself for a thousand-year frosty nap, but I am tenaciously hanging on to life.

Life is a precious thing. And cold though I may (and am) be, I can't let it be snatched away from my trembling fingers. I'll type with every last ounce of energy. I don't think energy is measured imperially anymore, but I don't know what the equivalent is in millikilometoids.

I think it's working, you know. This finger action is increasing my core temperature. Like an apple in a furnace. The colour is coming back to nearly all of my cheeks. I'm beginning to feel human again. I'm not the Human Torch by any means, but I'm certainly not Iceman. I'm somewhere in between. Like Luke Warm, Tepid Adventurer.

I think my problem was drinking cold coffee. It wasn't always cold. It had originally been piping hot (rather than 'pipping hot', which is the furnace apple again). But I got distracted, and the next thing I knew, time had passed. The coffee was cold. But it was still sitting there in my mug, quivering with delicious caffeine, occupying space. So I drank it. It was disgusting, but in a good way (like a Rustlers microwaveable burger).

I might as well have drunk liquid nitrogen. Which is also better consumed hot.

I don't want to dwell on past mistakes. I've got to keep my spirits up. If you're trapped in a ravine, with your arm stuck between a rock and your other arm, with a broken radio and no rations, with a polar bear stalking you from above, with a diabetic friend dangling over a cliff edge, you can't start thinking about mistakes.

That way madness lies.

People sing sometimes, don't they? To keep their spirits up? They sing a rousing tune. Like that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where Picard and some annoying kids sing Frère Jacques or something. We all remember that. That's part of our cultural consciousness. Like when Del Boy stormed the Iranian Embassy, or when Simon Cowell was shot into space and then shot (also in space).

I wouldn't sing a French song, though. There's nothing uplifting about that. Reminding myself of the very existence of France would be enough to make me lose hope and dash my head against the rocks.

I'd sing something properly uplifting. A song full of fire and hope and dignity. Something from An American Tail: Fievel Goes West. Or I could just do some beatboxing. There would be small risk of landslides, but it would be more than made up for by the copious morale, bubbling out of me like custard.

But I can't sing at my desk, can I? Or can I?

Sorry, I just asked the same question twice. That was redundant. In the same way as I'll be redundant after my office-based Blitz-spirit singalong.

I think the worst is over. My breath isn't steaming anymore. My moustache icicles have melted, and I'm beginning to get some feeling back in my thighs. And it's nearly time for lunch.

Lunch is the helicopter that will pry me out of the ravine and carry me to safety. I'm going to buy the hottest thing on the menu.

Coleslaw.