A quickie written on scraps of paper at work.

At first it had surprised me how quickly we had let go of our interests in killing each other after the crash, but the simple fact was that we needed each other to survive in this frozen place. There weren’t any food supplies on the plane to fight over since we’d only planned on moving the prisoners from secret prison A to secret prison B. One had died in the snow barely away from the wing. The other two we’d made walk in front of us as we’d made our way towards the only dark shapes that broke the fuzzy curve of the horizon. No one was coming to rescue us.

The first day walking along the snow everyone had maintained their position. By what we could only tell was day three by our watches, things had fallen apart. Amongst the frozen ships we’d found rusting as in jagged island through the sea ice, the two guards were off looked for tinned food, the prisoners were sat talking against an orange bulkhead, and I the copilot was watching them with a pistol. I’ve never fired a gun at a living thing in my life and I have no intention of doing that now.

The seat cushions we’d found inside this ship were fuelling a small, sad fire that seemed intent to go out the second none of us was watching. Poking it with edging peeled from the window frames gave the prisoners something to do so I left them to it, rocking on my numb backside with my hands trapped between my thighs and chest. Everything hurt and prickled from the cold. My saliva had dried around my beard and flaked off in clear patches whenever I rubbed my face.

Mike, the remaining white prisoner, stood with a deliberate slowness and beat his hands tucked inside his coat sleeves against his legs, getting the blood flowing again. “I’m going to walk around for a bit.”

I gave a shaky breath, less fearful and more irritated that I would have to do something about this. “I don’t think so. You’re staying put, just like those nice guys with the guns told you to.” From between my legs I pulled out the matte black pistol to underline my point, though I held it so clumsily that it must have looked like I’d sooner shoot myself or the tilted ceiling than I’d hit anything I’d actually aimed at.

The black man looked between us, his dreadlocks thick with ice and hanging in heavy, stiff clumps. In the night I’d hear him cracking them and slipped the frozen water into his mouth to melt on his tongue. “None of us could go anywhere if we did leave. Our best chance lies in walking for help, not sitting in this graveyard of ships until we starve.”

I’d stand to assert myself but my legs want to stay curled up on the floor. I can’t deny the African’s point, though. We know there aren’t any guns on these ships as that was the first thing the guards looked for, which I found a strange order of priorities, so it wasn’t as if the prisoners could get their hands on anything dangerous. Worst they could do was make a run for it and freeze to death in the snow without a hope of being found as their body was covering in white. It would be one less person to worry about feeding, at least.

“Fine. Do what you want. Just don’t take too long, alright? If they come back and see you’ve wandered off, they’re as likely to beat hell on me as much as you.”

He nods by tipping his head back first and bringing it level again, more of a gesture of indicating something than agreeing. I decided not to look into it, watching him turn and leave through the oval doorway. The African stands as soon as he’s left.

“Watch the fire.”

I don’t question the instruction. Frozen and numb, it’s easier to accept being told what to do than to cobble a thought together to tell someone else what to do. The fire remains dutifully lit as I watch, slinking outwards to spread over a stiff headrest that I shove at it with my foot. The African is gone for a long time before he comes back cradling something small in his hands.

He sits close to the fire cross-legged and holds the oblongs of stone towards the flames, warming his hands and melting the ice on them. They’re not stones though.

I can’t take my eyes off them. “Bones?”

A nod that makes his hair creak. “Most of the bodies here are preserved, but this one had been eaten by something and picked clean. These were the toes.”

Sucking my tongue, I try desperately not to think of the toes in the boots of the sailor they had belonged to, being pawed out by a bear or a fox. “What are you doing with them?”

As an answer, he closes his hands and shakes the bones before dropping them onto the bobbled deck, studying their arrangement. “Asking my ancestors for guidance, for how to survive.”

Shaman stuff. Witch doctors who tell men infected with AIDs that sex with a virgin will cure them, so they go for the youngest girls they can find and make them rip and bleed. The Aztecs cut out the hearts of virgins in ceremonies to their gods. Why is it always virgins? And there’s never snow in these things. I can’t even compare. Out here with almost nothing and no one coming for us, what else can we have hope in but the things we can’t see? “Will bones work for that?”

He gives me a half smile, his dark teeth dull beneath a layer of plaque fuzz. I’ve begun eating mine, so my teeth are smooth. “I hope so. It’s the best I have.”

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