Author's webpage: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Starship/6102/home.html

Author's disclaimer:
There once was a group in Toronto,
Who made the world's best TV show.
People, wolves, places, and plot,
All the rights they have got,
But here I can do what I want to!

Author's notes: Was I a little depressed when I wrote this? What makes you think that? Dedicated, as always, to the wonderful women of RSY.

Beautiful. Beautiful to some at least, but acknowledged by everyone as, rugged, wild and strong...but empty.

The Yukon landscape stretches before me in all it's untamed majesty, snowfields that go on for kilometer after kilometer, my own boots the only human mark upon their pristine grandeur. Mountains rise up along the edges like a ring of broken, non-conformist jewels, their proud peaks never touched by the hand of man. Wind slashes bitterly across the open spaces, cutting, biting anyone who dares to stand in it's path. Tiny ice crystals ripped from the mountain tops are carried on that wind, and I feel them stabbing my face like dozens of tiny devils wielding pitchforks.

I make no move to pull up the hood of my parka, to wrap the scarf that hangs loosely from my neck. Instead, I welcome it, turning into the wind until each gust brings a slight gasp of pain. My hands want to pull the protective wool, fur, and leather into place to shield myself, but my mind orders them strictly down.

All my life, it has been an automatic instinct to protect myself, and even now, I have the means with me. As a small child, my mother had wrapped my snugly before I stepped into that hostile environment, teasingly telling me that I looked like a teddy bear when I was so swaddled in fur and leather that only my eyes and a few dark curls were visible, my young movements hampered by the thick layers. Yet they served their purpose, as did the less-extreme habits I carried into adulthood. Unlike most men who have spent their lives here, my skin is unweathered and smooth.

Vulnerable. There is a stinging bite against one cheek that is harsher than the others, and I feel a drop of blood begin to well on my cheek, a strange warmth on the chilled skin. One of those snatches of ice must have been larger and sharper than the others. I don't care. I am here to challenge the environment, dare it to weather and wear me until I cannot feel the pain any more.

No more pain. Already, I can feel my face beginning to numb against the cold. Some small, sensible part of my mind tries to remind me that this is not a good thing, and that frostbite can soon follow, but I don't listen. This is what I want. No more pain.

My fingers, muffled in thick sealskin gloves, move to the front of my parka. Almost fumbling in their hurry, they release the fasteners, the wind quickly pulls back the heavy garment, icy hands searching and grabbing the heat of my body away greedily. The breathtaking cold creates a primal, self-preservation response in my mind, and I welcome it. The growing alarm bells are pushing out the other pain, just as surely as the numbness in my face pushes out the pain of the wind. I shrug my shoulders, letting the parka fall to the ground.

Spreading my arms wide, I turn my body back into the wind. I can hear it singing through the distant mountains, a mournful crying as it asks why I trusted it. Why I expected it to do anything for me. Not it, her. The Yukon, in Inuit legend, is a woman, and I know now why. She caresses, seduces, tempts you with beauty and elegance, with home and hearth and belonging. Then she leaves you, cold and alone, that mournful cry sounding far too much like laughter as she speeds on, her promises of belonging coldly forgotten.

I begin to shiver violently, but I make no move to bring the parka's warmth around me again. You're going to help me this time, Yukon, whether you want to or not. You're going to remedy what you did to me, what you stole from me. You stole everything, and now I expect you to numb everything, to freeze so deeply that nothing can feel, nothing can hurt. Not just to remove pain from my face or my body, but from my very soul.

When I left you the first time, I was happy enough. You had held my hand through childhood, guided me through adolescence, given me a purpose as a young man. You had taught me so many things, and I thought you had prepared me for the rest of the world.

What I hadn't been prepared for was your jealousy. The more I found a new home away from you, the more you cried and begged and pulled at my soul. I had friends in that new home, Yukon. Friends of every type...passing acquaintances, simple companions, comrades, co-workers, neighbors, and soulmates who were as close to me as family. They loved me, Yukon, but I couldn't forget your siren song, your cold beauty. You whispered in my ear in the middle of the night, telling me these friendships were only transient, that you were who I really belonged with.

I believed you, you heartless vixen. I believed you enough that I left them. Turning my back on the warmth, I returned here to the cold. At first, you flirted coquettishly, pleased to see me back. Stunning me with your beauty, singing only your brightest, most entrancing song. You are truly the most jealous, bewitching mistress on earth, and you even persuaded me to abandon my mortal love when she could not accept my mistress. As with so many mistresses, you cost me a wife, a family, my lifelong dreams and desires.

Blunting that pain with your caress, you led me and my one remaining soulmate into your embrace. We followed blindly, but now, even he is gone. We never found the hand of Franklin, but he found his happiness nonetheless. He found it at my sister's cabin.

Why, Yukon? Why did you let him have a wife and a mistress? Why was he allowed to keep you, with your shining white jewels, your sultry song, and still have a wife to hold in flesh and blood? You even are allowing him a child, damn you! I gave my entire life to you, gave you everything I had and more! Why are you giving him the rewards and extracting the price from me?

I have nothing left, Yukon, nothing left but the empty beating of my heart, alone in my chest. Take that now, slow it, slow it, slow it with your breath, then please, Yukon, be merciful. Let it stop.

Here, take my gloves. Take my sweater. I am here, here before you in nothing more than a flannel shirt, a pair of uniform trousers, an undershirt and boots. More than enough for you to do your work. For once, Yukon, show me mercy. I'm alone with you now, and I'm asking...for the first time in my life, I'm asking you something rather than blindly accepting whatever you chose. I'm asking for a release from this desperate, wrenching loneliness.

I'm nearly thirty-nine. You've had thirty-five of those years, thirty-three before I left you, and two since I've returned. Surely that's enough. Surely you realize I cannot do this any longer, cannot live with the price you demand for your affections. You're such an expensive harlot, Yukon, flattering and caressing so many men, using them and using them until their souls are bled dry, then casting them aside. You did it to my father, stealing his wife and son as subtly as any human mistress, convincing him that the price was nothing. Then you cast him aside, let him bleed to death in your white arms.

I'm asking you to cast me aside now. To let me go.

Yes, I can feel it now. I've stopped shivering. There is a warmth now, a heaviness. You're going to make this easy, I see. Is this your penance, Yukon? You've caused me so much pain in life that you've chosen to allow me a peaceful death? I heard men say that they wanted to die in the arms of a good woman, blanketed beneath silk in a fine hotel room. In a way, I suppose, this is quite close. I will die in the arms of my life-long mistress, blanketed beneath her downy snow, surrounded by scenery as beautiful as a man could want.

My eyes are heavy now. I feel drowsy, need to sleep, but I want to hold my eyes open, to see Yukon's lovely face as I go. I think I smile, but I cannot feel my face to know. I am not the first man to face this dilemma, to want to stay to see, want to go for peace, fear what I will find on the other side - and all at the same time. Most of these men simply made their choice and faded from memory like I will, but a few have made their mark. Perhaps the most famous of these a young Danish prince.

To die: to sleep; no more, and by a sleep to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; to sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come?

Oh, Hamlet, how right you were. What dreams may come indeed? Will I become like my father, stranded in a world suspended between this and the next? Forever to wonder and wait until my final, unknown task is at last complete? Will, as some religions say, I be carried off to a place of wonder and light? Or will my final act of cowardice commit me to burn for all eternity?

As if it matters. Either way, this will be over, and this life is a load of loneliness I can no longer bear.

The darkness is coming. The pain in my body has long ago stopped, and I feel now only a tingling warmth as my eyes are drawn slowly downward. Sinking to my knees in the white carpet, I embrace death. Thank you kindly, Yukon, you are finally showing me mercy.

Closing my eyes, I allow my body to relax, to fall fully into your arms.

At last, Yukon, your call of the wild has been answered.

THE END