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Outside Magazine September 2004
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Excerpt: Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Trapped (cont.)

DAY SIX: THURSDAY, MAY 1, 9:30 A.M.
With five days of gritty buildup pasted to my contact lenses, my eyes hurt at every blink, and wavering fringes of cloud frame my dingy vision. Sip after sip of acidic urine has eroded my gums and left my palate raw. I can't hold my head upright; it lolls off to lean against the canyon wall. I am a zombie. I am the undead.

Miserable, I watch another empty hour pass by. The boost I felt from my vision of the boy has dissipated entirely. I have nothing whatsoever to do. I have no life. There is nothing that gives even a slight hint that this awful stillness will break. But I can make it break. I can resume smashing the chockstone with the rock.

Bonk! Again, I strike the boulder, the pain in my hand flaring. Thwock! And again. Screeaatch! My rage blooms purple amid a small mushroom cloud of pulverized grit. I bring the rock down again. Carrunch! Now my voice stokes hatred for the chockstone as I growl with animalistic fury—"Unnngaaarrrrgh!"—in response to the throbs pulsing in my left hand.

Whoa, Aron. You might have taken that too far.

With my knife, I begin clearing particles from my trapped hand, using the dulled blade like a brush. Sweeping the grit off my thumb, I accidentally gouge myself and rip away a thin piece of decayed flesh. It peels back like the skin of boiled milk before I catch what is going on. I already knew my hand had to be decomposing without circulation, but I wasn't sure how fast the putrefaction had advanced. Now I suddenly understand the indigenous insect population's increased interest in my hand.

Out of curiosity, I poke my thumb with my knife blade twice. On the second prodding, the blade punctures the epidermis, like it is dipping into a stick of room-temperature butter, and releases a telltale hissing. Escaping decomposition gases are not good; the rot has advanced more quickly than I guessed. Though the smell is faint to my desensitized nose, it is abjectly unpleasant, the stench of a far-off carcass.

I lash out in fury, trying to yank my arm straight out from under the sandstone handcuff, never wanting more than I do right now to simply rid myself of any connection to this rotting appendage.

I don't want it.

It's not a part of me.

It's garbage.

Throw it away, Aron. Be rid of it.

I thrash myself forward and back, side to side, up and down, down and up. I scream out in pure hate, shrieking as I batter my body against the canyon walls, losing every bit of composure that I've struggled so intensely to maintain. And then I feel my arm bend unnaturally in the unbudging grip of the chockstone. An epiphany strikes me with the magnificent glory of a holy intervention and instantly brings my seizure to a halt:

If I torque my arm far enough, I can break my forearm bones.

Like bending a two-by-four held in a table vise, I can just bow my entire goddamn arm until it snaps in two!

Holy Christ, Aron, that's it, that's it. THAT'S FUCKING IT!

There is no hesitation. I barely realize what I'm about to do. I unclip from the anchor webbing, crouching until my buttocks are almost touching the stones on the canyon floor. I put my left hand under the boulder and push hard, harder, HARDER! to put a maximum downward force on my radius bone. As I slowly bend my arm down to the left, a POW! reverberates like a muted cap-gun shot.

I scramble to clear the chockstone, trying to keep my head on straight. Without further pause and again in silence, I hump my body up over the rock. Smearing my shoes against the canyon walls, I push with my legs and grab the back of the chockstone with my left hand, pulling with every bit of ferocity I can muster, until a second cap-gun shot ends my ulna's anticipation. Sweating and euphoric, I touch my right arm again. Both bones have splintered in the same place, just above my wrist.

I am overcome with excitement. Hustling to deploy the shorter and sharper multitool blade, I completely skip the tourniquet procedure I have rehearsed and place the cutting tip to my wrist, between two blue veins. I push the knife into my wrist, watching my skin stretch inward, until the point finally pierces and sinks to its hilt.

In a blaze of pain, I know the job is just starting.


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