I huddled myself tighter into the fur lined parka, as I watched the unbroken vista of gleaming snow pass beneath the wings of the small airplane. It wasn't as if the cabin was cold, but the mere thought of the bitter barrenness that unfolded beneath my semi-focused gaze it was enough to stipple Goosebumps all over my body. If only Matthew had been faithful!
Sadly, I audited the wreckage of my life. Here I am, 25 years old. No family, very few friends and because of a car wreck, I will never have no children. My world had revolved around my lover. Ok, so he wasn't handsome, not in the conventional sense, nor was he rich and powerful. He wasn't even a particularly good lover, though my knowledge in this area was previously limited to a furtive, drunken, coupling with a barely known teenager on my sixteenth birthday. From what I heard from the girls at work, my sex life was also fairly dull and conventional. Certainly if their giggled tales of sexual gymnastics were to be believed.
He wasn't even a man's man. But he made my laugh. He could tease delighted shrieks of merriment from my even with the most mundane aspects of my life. What few friends we did have couldn't believe how happy we seemed, always laughing and constantly contriving to touch each other, as if seeking reassurance that our wonderful, wonderful partner did indeed exist. My world was shattered when I paid a surprise visit to his office. And caught him with her. It was not as though the girl was especially beautiful, in fact the more I thought of her the uglier she became. Granted I had a nice body, nicer than most. I acknowledged rightfully, and I have a cute face and very shapely body.
But anyone, certainly any woman, could see that she was a predator. The big hair, the tight clothes, the short skirt that somehow, but only just, managed to stay on the right side of the line between erotic and obscene. The signs were all there to see. She was a man hunter, a shark; perfectly at ease on the seamier side of the corporate jungle that she had made her home. And Matt fell for her, hook, line and sinker. She had carefully snared her prey, Matt just become another pelt on the vixen's bedpost when new pastures beckoned. Looking back it was the brutal surprise of it all that caused me to over react. Weeping, I had stumbled from the office, with the pitying stares of Mat's colleagues piercing my back like barbed arrows. I drove for hours trying to piece together the shattered puzzle of my life. It was as if some malevolent god had noted that I was becoming too happy, and then decided to crush my spirit in one brutal act.
I took to a room in a mean hotel and only surfaced occasionally to grab a quick snack before disappearing again to confront my misery. It was on one of these forays that I decided to pick up a local paper, to help take my mind off of my loss with the parochial scribbling of a small town rag. From that point on my life executed a series of jumps, like a movie slipping from the projector's sprockets. I saw the job ads. One in particular grabbed my attention. It seemed to be just what I needed. I applied, I was interviewed, and I was accepted. Just like that! Oh I had to get a physical and fill out tons of paper, but it was a done deal for a six-month live in job for a Gas company way in the Alaskan backcountry.
So I went back to our apartment to get a bag full of clothes. Matt clearly hadn't been home. This pierced my heart and honed my resolve to get far away from him and his whore. With my head held high and my backed straight, I walked out of my old life and into my new. Which is why I found myself gazing out at hundreds of miles of white, frozen, desert as the plane snored deeper into the wastes of Northern Alaska. I looked around the small cabin of the plane noting, the strapped down boxes of supplies and the three empty seats. The flight crew had informed my that this was probably going to be the last flight that winter, before the weather descended and socked the airfield in tight. I cuddled deeper and tried to sleep as the arctic sun prescribed its low, autumn, parabola and slowly disappeared from view.
When we arrived the wash of the propellers threw stinging clouds of snow at my as I wobbled down the aircraft steps. The bitter cold, felt even through my fur-lined clothing, felt like a million stinging needles on its way down into my lungs. I was so wrapped up in reaching the sanctuary of the huddle of buildings, hunkered down and barely visible in the snow that I almost failed to notice the small figure that was being guided out to the aircraft.
The size and build, discerned even through the layers of swaddling, indicated it was that of a woman. My predecessor evidently I raised a mitten in salute but the girl stumbled blindly towards the aircraft. I tried to call out but the bitter wind tore my words to pieces scattering them, in a million unconnected fragments, over the bleak wasteland. I was about to turn and shout again but I noticed a figure, dark against the gleam of the ice, beckoning my furiously towards the larger of the buildings. So I hurried, as best I could across the snow-covered ground, towards the haven within the building.
I hurried over as the wrapped figure beat his hands against the opposing upper arms, and stamped his feet, in an attempt to stave off the cold. Once within the wind shadow of the building the incessant, mournful, howl of the wind dropped enough for my to recognize the man shouting. "Hurry up. This is no place to be out playing in the snow." The wind robbed me of the sentiment in the voice but I agreed with the spirit and virtually sprinted the last few yards. As the air trap closed behind me I heard the roar of the aircraft's engines as it tore into the night sky. The man pulled off a mitten, once we were safely inside, and held out his hand. I reciprocated. "Hi I'm Bernard De’Ville and I'm the site manager, but most people call me bud or buddy."
"Penny White. Pleased to meet you Bud." I said He smiled. It was not a beautiful smile, but it made a homely counterpoint to the raw loneliness that I had been with for the past few hours.
"Come in, come in. Let me show you round your new home." He beckoned. "Make yourself comfortable, take that heavy coat off. We keep this place pretty warm as you will soon find out and you'll be sweating in no time if you keep that thing on." I had already noted the almost sub-tropical heat of the place. Still we didn't have a heating bill problem as we made gas here, or dug it up or whatever we did. I surmised from what I had been told, but the details escaped me. I shucked off my coat and the heavy sweater and stood clad in my checked lumberjack shirt and blue jeans. (The standard company issue) I felt a mild twinge of unease, as I noticed the site manager appraising my, but decided to suppress it, female company was probably pretty scarce around here. He indicated a chair. "Please. Sit down. Coffee?"
"Love one."
