The Station, Part 55

My hidden trailblazers have stopped. I know this because I have caught up to them and I can see that there is no movement in the thick snow now. I’m not sure just how far behind I am, as I don’t know the actual size or number of creatures that make up these trailblazers. They’ve, instead of traveling forward; have been working a circular path, round and round, until a buildup of snow has formed. Higher and higher it has climbed, until it towers above me, a mound that bears a strong resemblance to a cocoon. It even possesses a translucent quality that allows me to at least see partially inside. And what I see helps me little in determining the nature of my latest assistants. Inside this immense construct I see just an amorphous dark side, now and then shifting here and there, as if trying to find the most comfortable position possible. I have a feeling they are going to be here a while. And what does this mean for me? Have they, or it, completed their task and I been dismissed? There’s still so much traveling to be done. I strain to see as far ahead as possible, which has become more difficult as the bright blue of the day has faded to a dull gray. There is nothing but more dunes all the way to the fading horizon.

It has grown colder as well. Really, it’s the first time I have even truly noticed it. And with the drop in temperature, I see the first ever so slight precipitation. Snowflakes fluttering down around me. Delicate things that would be familiar on any world I imagine. But how? Looking up I se that the grayness is but a gathering of clouds. Or something analogous to them. I sit low and immediately give me a sense of foreboding. The flakes are rapidly increasing and suddenly feel naked, exposed out here. The purpose of the mound my new friends have produced is suddenly clear—shelter. Even they must protect against a coming type of cold that even they’re naked bodies cannot withstand alone. Huddled together within that self-made temporary they have self-generated body warmth and insulation with which to survive. And what do I have? I have literally been left out in the cold.

Whoever said necessity is the mother of invention may have been in a situation very much like my own. And how right they were. I know nothing of building shelters, let alone a shelter out of ice and snow. But as the cold increased, somehow, and from somewhere within me, I have managed to create a temporary. Under other circumstances I would be rather proud of myself, but I have no luxury to do so now. All I can do is huddle inside and let my own body warmth keep me alive. And, by the stars, I think it will work. I don’t know where the ingenuity to make and igloo as good as I did the first time, without benefit of time for trial and error came from, but I strongly suspect just how. The Sleep Lessons are not without purpose I remind myself. And make that more than just one purpose. And as I lay here, drifting, I know it will be a good sleep, not the sleep that is the death of me. I am warm again, my own body fur insulating and protecting me from the elements. I have the luxury of sleep—and perhaps another sleep lesson—once again. I just know it will happen. It has happened every time I have lost myself to my unconscious.