By Lanton Worley

I find myself, as life draws colder, thinking about survival.

To fridge a character in a story means killing them to advance the plot. It means ending their story prematurely for the sake of another’s narrative. A story and a world that wasn’t made for them, they only exist to die. The wife’s corpse, the father’s grave, the child’s tombstone. I tell you that the world around us is frigid. I do not mean that I am cold. I am writing this late at night, by the light of a candle I lit in my little luck-shrine, wrapped up in blankets. The air around me is frozen, crystals of frost tangled in my lungs. I tell you about the frigid air. I am telling you about the fridged lover. I don’t mean either. They aren’t the point of this narrative – you are.

A fridged character has no story. So, I am writing this one for you. Not a specific you. I have someone in mind, of course, but if you are reading this, it’s for you.

If you are reading this, I am asking you to live.

Cryogenic revival describes the act of bringing someone back from the dead following their body being frozen. People around the world buy into it, they ice their bodies in hopes of a future revolution. They put the corpse in the freezer and hope against hope that there’s a chance to live again. It’s all hypothetical, of course, but is that enough? The frozen body of the fridged character, thawed out and filled with volts, with magic, with luck, with nanobots. With whatever it is that the story says will save them. I’m not sure I believe in that. I’m not sure we can bet on it.

The wax on my candle is melting. If I go outside, I will be able to see my breath, but the wax melts anyway. Somewhere, in the night, while I am writing this, there are snowdrops. Flowers that bloom even as the snow falls. Fir trees are green even in the winter months. There are deer running through the ice, there are fish swimming in a frozen lake.

What I am trying to tell you is this.

You need to live. Please. I know this is a story you stumbled upon, the ramblings of a stranger late at night. You do not know me, but I know you. I know everyone who needs to hear this, because I have been you.

You have a space within this narrative. I wrote it just for you. It’s small, and ambiguous, you have to fill in any details yourself. I don’t know how it ends yet, but I know what happens next.

There will come a day, in months or in years, when the snow will thaw. You will be there to see it. You will feel the warmth on your face again, the blood in your veins won’t feel so alien. There will come a day when you sit and watch the stars, and the fog of your breath will barely be visible. You will survive this. There will be a future waiting. I hope it’s beautiful, I hope I see you there.

If you need a sign, here it is.

You will live through winter. You will see the sun again. I don’t know your name, but I know you, I see you, I love you.

I am asking you to trust me. I am asking you to live. The future is waiting for you and me, we have to get to it.

Photo by Alexis Caso from Pexels.com