7 It took one more try, as the ice was very thick, but after the second firing the rock wore the ice down and finally broke through to the bottom. The sun was up then and Thomas had been tapping his foot after consuming two more cups of coffee. When the glowing hot rock bubbled […]
5 The first months passed surprisingly quickly. The daytime narrowed by just over thirty minutes every week, and he was determined to make the most of this time. Soon there would be only five-and-a-half hours of sunlight between sunrise and sunset, when the sun would make a gloomy arch through the sky and leave the […]
3 Sunlight crept through the walls of the cabin and his stomach ached for food. The frozen fruit was unchewable, so he put a few handfuls of it into his pockets and started another fire. He melted snow in tin cans near the fire and placed some frozen meat between them. An hour […]
1 Thomas was hungry. He had been hungry before, but this was different. During community college he dizzied himself with a restricted diet of instant noodles and peanut butter that did nothing but prevent the walls of his stomach from eating each other. College hunger was a rite of passage, and even a source of […]