through the ice

two teenage boys had gone ice fishing with their fathers way up north

where isolation is the word of the day &

the snow is so deep that snow shoes are something of a prerequisite to

stepping outside your house---

as the two fathers were out on the ice

setting up the holes & getting the tip-ups ready,

the two boys were fighting on a hill that was so freshly covered with snow

that not one footstep or animal track

had descended down to the shore of the frozen pond &

as one of the boys ran down the hill after getting a good thrashing with the other’s

stick,

his legs suddenly dropped through,

apparently where he thought the land still continued &

the ice would not have began yet---

however, as he was wrong,

he promptly fell through.

 

thinking quickly, instinctively perhaps,

the boy left on land threw his stick

(the one which he’d been beating his friend with)

down towards the other that had just fallen through &

was subsequently sinking with a look on his face

of fear & shock combined---

after being shouted at to grab the stick,

one friend pulled the other from the icy water

before he fell completely under &

dragged him to land quickly enough

so that they both did not fall in again.

 

though the boy who’d fallen through

now walked in frozen jeans &

could hardly feel his legs,

he was taken to where the fathers had started a fire

near the holes they drilled &

after stripping him down & basically putting his legs in

the fire,

the boy’s father was able to keep his son from

getting hypothermia.

 

the fishing was cut short

as the small group made haste down the long trail

back to the trucks

where the father of the nearly frozen boy

sat him in the cab of his truck

with his bare feet in front of the heater

all the way home.