Visions in the Dark

I am lost in a coniferous forest somewhere in snowy northern Canada. I have been lost for a long time, wandering in the endless frozen forest, and the cold is starting to effect my body in seriously adverse ways. My left hand, from the wrist, has turned completely black from frostbite and my legs have been numb for hours, thoughI still force myself to stumble through the snow because for I have a false believe that if I keep moving that things will get better or I will be found or something.

Another night comes and the moon is the biggest and the fullest I have ever seen before. It is so bright in fact that I can find my way through the forst as if it were day time. I cannot see what it is but I hear foot falls in the snow behind me and know that I am being followed by a wild animal. Many days and nights pass and my body is sucumbing more to the cold. The animal that has been following me is still around but I have no yet seen what it is, though I suspect that it is waiting for me to die. One day I collapse in the snow exhausted finally reigned to my inevitable fate and wait for the wild animal to come and eat me.

I lift my tired head and see a light grey wolf slowing making its way to me. The wolf is very think and weak looking and I can see the outline of its ribs and the creature seems to be starving terribly, though it is not threatening me and seems more curious than anything. I figure I am going to die anyway so I pull a pocket knife out and cut off my frostbitten hand and toss it towards the wolf then immediately pass out. I wake up at night and find myself alone. I don't know where the wolf went and cannot see if it ate my hand because it is too dark. I find the strength to stand up and begin wandering again, more out of boredom than anything because I don't think I am going to be saved and I am essentially just passing the time until I do. I am so cold and so tired that I no longer actually feel the cold that much anymore, let alone think about it.

Something happens one day though the dream becomes fuzzy and I cannot remember exactly what. I think a bear or a group of evil hunter men came upon me and attack me but I am saved my the light grey wolf that had been following me before. The wolf chases away my attacks and then has to drag me away from there, by the collar of my coat, through the forest because my body is so tired and damaged by the cold that I can no longer walk. I don't know how long the wolf dragged me but it felt like a long time. I pass in and out of consciousness for days and in one moment of clarity I talk to the wolf and believe it can understand me (partly loneliness, partly delerium) and tell him that when I die that he has my permission to eat my body because I know that it is still starving. I pass out again right after.

I wake up in a hospital bed. I know I am still in the north because I can see a snowstorm raging outside of my hospital window. It is night and everything is quiet and I am trying to wrap my mind around how I survived in the frozen north for so long. I also wonder about the starving wolf and feel bad that I did not die so that he would have something to eat. I lay awake for a long time because my mind is ruminating about so many things and the thoughts of my experience begin to overwhelm me when a nurse with sort curly hair in pink scrubs comes in and says that the doctor will be in shortly. After some time passes an elderly Native American aboriginal chief dressed in a leather vest and a coyboy hat comes in and tells me that I am lucky to be alive and he asks me about the details of my ordeal.

I tell him everything I remember happening including being saved by the starving wolf and the doctor tells me that I am mistaken. He says that I was found by the side of the road in one peice and that they had to amputate my hand because of the frostbite damage after I was brought to the hospital. I argue with the doctor and tell him that I am so sure that it all really happened. The doctor tells me that I was suffering from delerium from the cold and that I probably hallucinated the whole thing. I feel kind of at a loss because I am not sure how to feel but the doctor tells me that I probably did meet a wolf in the frozen north and that it guided me out of the forest because in Native American aboriginal legend, the wolf is a protector and a guide for lost soles.

After the docotr leaves I stare out of the window for a long time, trying to come to terms with what I though was real and what I was told really happen. Through the blowing snow outside I can see something move and when it comes close to the window I can see that it is the starving wolf that saved me, though it no longer looks like it is starving. The wolf looks at me for a moment than runs off into the snowstorm and the dream ends there.