All the Important Elements
- Dec 8, 2021
- 3 min read
by Pip Robertson
Rime ice will be important in this story. Crystal-like on the downwind side of objects, disguising blades of mountain grass as feathers, dressing trees in lace. It will be the reason the parents deviate from the track and take the longer, more exposed route. What a wonderland.
Experience will be important. The father, for as long as the girl can remember, spreading out maps with lines as fine as fingerprints, memorising the ridgelines, river systems, flood routes, huts.
A best friend turning 16 will be important, creating a necessary diversion. The girl choosing not to go up the mountain because of the birthday party that evening, even though the parents will say it’s just a day trip and she could do both. But she’ll kill me if I’m late. I’ll come next time, promise.
Kisses goodbye will be important in this story.
A rock will be important for as long as it takes to trip the mother so that she lands in such a way as to break, or at least badly sprain, her ankle. After that, the rock will no longer be important.
A sudden low-pressure weather event will be important, adding an element of surprise. Wrap up everyone!No one forecast this but it’s turning nasty out there!
Spindly orange route markers placed at intervals to guide through the terrain will be important, despite appearing only in its early stages, prettily fringed with rime ice, before the dense obscuring fog, before the dark.
One bar of occasional cell phone reception will be important for raising false hope.
A good-looking 19-year-old will be important in this story, for the frisson of teenage promiscuity. A friend of someone’s cousin, in town for one night, going to a party because he has nothing better to do, smiling across the room at the girl in a way that makes her blush and lower her eyes. Her friend (necessary diversion) noticing, pulling the girl aside. Babe. Here’s what to do.
Waterproof outer layers, thermal fabric under layers, and appropriate footwear will all be important in this story although, ultimately, inadequate.
A mountain hut will be important, teasing with the possibility of a happy ending, if only it could be found. The father shining his headlamp around in the dark, finding fog, knowing the hut is close, knowing that if he could get his bearings, he could find his way there. (See again, experience. See again, spindly orange route markers).
Food will be important. The father’s gloved hands struggling to open the bag of chocolate and nuts. The mother’s jaw aching with cold making it impossible to chew. Just have the chocolate then. Let it dissolve in your mouth.
One o’clock in the morning will be important in this story. The girl, coming home later than she is allowed, pleased to find no one waiting up, tiptoeing through the dark house so as not to wake the parents, who she assumes are asleep in their bed, not thinking to check the garage for the car or go upstairs to their bedroom, just relieved she got away with it.
A tremendous heat flooding the body will be important. The mother, taking off her hat, her gloves, fumbling at the zip of her jacket while the father tries to divert her hands. Keep them on. Fuck, please, keep them on.
A lack of response will be important in this story. The father calling out in the dark and nothing coming back on the wind. The girl waking in the morning, head full of the night before, then noticing the odd quiet in the house and walking room to room. Morning. Hellooo. Hello?
A pillow improvised from the contents of a pack will be important. The father taking the softest items that weren’t already being worn and arranging them under the mother’s head. (See again, kisses.)
Proximity will be important. The dawn light revealing the mother, lying a short distance from the father, lying a short distance from the track, a short distance along which is the hut and a group of people waking in sleeping bags, listening to the rain hitting the roof, thinking, thank God we’re not out in that. Hey, anyone else hear that crazy wind in the night? Almost sounded like someone yelling?
The mountain range will be important in this story, and in every subsequent story. All her life it has been visible from the girl’s bedroom window. It will now be present no matter where she is: weighing on her shoulders, sharp in her throat, hard under her breastbone, waiting every night behind her eyes when she closes them to sleep.
Pip Robertson is a writer in Aotearoa New Zealand. She has stories published in Landfall, Hue and Cry, the Reading Room, and Jellyfish Review, and upcoming in the And If That Mockingbird Don’t Sing anthology by Alternating Current Press.
