a quixotic story

Each day, he bumped up in his dirt-smeared Jeep to the terminus of the icy glacier. Then, making two or three portages in the slick mud and icy rivulets of water, he hefted his portable generator, orange extension cords, and red-dented cans of fuel up to the wall of ice. There, you would think him an incredible fool and entirely insane as he started up the generator, plugged in his tool of choice, and--switching it on--he stretched a hair dryer before him in clenched hands. Sometimes he concentrated against a single area of ice; other times, he would swing it side to side, up and down.  He had, by now, used up his first dozen hair dryers.

He held himself and his body, knees slightly bent, in what target shooters call the Weaver Position, intent, practiced, and steady. Could he not see the impossibility of his task?

On rare occasions, though, if you were close enough, you might have seen tears streaming from his eyes, to spread through the stubble of his cheeks and chin; you would have seen his lips pursing and stretching across tightly clenched teeth; and you might have heard sounds, something like constrained growls and whimpers, from deep in his chest.

There was also one late afternoon when, after concentrating on single spot for more than an hour, you could almost see an indentation in the ice, where water slicked its surface, and a drip was just about to let go. If you could have seen his eyes, they had a sudden glint of something like hope. At that very moment, the hair dryer died with a pitiful "pop" and spark. He stood a moment, refusing to put his arms down as he watched the slick surface whiten into crystals. As the drip finally hardened, he thrust his arms and the inert instrument down at his sides. Twisting his shoulders and face upward he barked and howled to the darkening sky, "Melt! MELT! MMEEELLT!"

Yes. He knew.

He was also more convinced that there was something deep and warm within the ice that he had to help free, something too delicate to risk against hammer and chisel or pickax. Still, you would be right. You would be right to shake your head at such ...hubris? optimism? paranoia? He would never melt such a wall of ice with his small stream of heated air.

However, maybe you were not aware, or had forgotten, that forces greater than he were already at work, forces on his side. This wall of ice was receding, and would, in fact, melt. With time and patience, he might see it, and hold what he believed was waiting for release. However infinitesimal and ridiculous his part, he prayed that he might be there...

-----

Sadly, what he did not--perhaps could not--know was that a fissure had opened from the top of the glacier, freeing that for which he labored and longed. It stared for a moment through the ice at him and his fruitless efforts. Then, with something like a shrug or a sigh, it unfolded its new wings and lifted from its small chasm to fields far and beyond.