Observations placeholder

I felt light headed and could feel the light behind my closed eyelids. So many voices! All speaking at once.

 My mother's voice was also there.

 The voices babbled along like a stream, like trickles of melt water. They whispered, murmured and called my name over and over again:

 'Reinhold!'

 …….  Awkwardly, I reached for my axe and stumbled off again.

 The voices were silent for a while but as I reached the edge of the moraine they were back again. And there were people, too, waiting for me - no doubt about it.

 Further left I could see a horse; yes, a horse. They were coming nearer.

 They must have seen me, I thought. Then the horse stopped.

 And the others? Surely it was too early for a search party?

 At first I thought it might be another expedition and then, beyond the moraine, I saw some cattle. Shepherds with their herds, perhaps? I stumbled onwards across the dead glacier, stepping over crevasses, heading towards the edge of the moraine but was disappointed to see that there was no one there waiting for me.

The horse turned out to be a crevasse, the people just clumps of bushes and stones. The cattle I had seen earlier were boulders scattered amongst the grass.

 The last steep uphill slope sapped nearly all my remaining energy. The steep and unstable scree was hard work and I often had to stop and rest, slumped over almost unconscious, before hauling myself upright again and climbing a little higher. I clung to clumps of grass, slipping and scrabbling for secure footholds and trying not to give up. But I couldn't manage it, not in my state. I was wrecked.  It was quite pathetic, really, but I could find little humour in the situation.