An hour later and Nora was on an expanse of snow-covered rock. More of a skerry than an island. A place so small and uninhabitable it had no name, though a larger island โ ominously titled Bear Islandย โย was visible across the ice-cold water. She stood next to a boat. Not theย Lance, the large boat sheโd had breakfast on โ that was moored safely out at sea โ but the small motor-dinghy that had been dragged up out of the water almost single-handedly by a big boulder of a man called Rune, who, despite his Scandinavian name, spoke in languid west-coast American.
At her feet was a ๏ฌuorescent yellow rucksack. And lying on the ground was the Winchester ri๏ฌe that had been leaning against the wall in the cabin.
๎ขis wasย herย gun. In this life, she owned a ๏ฌrearm. Next to the gun was a saucepan with a ladle inside it. In her hands was another, less deadly, gun โ a signal pistol ready to ๏ฌre a ๏ฌare.
She had discovered what kind of โspottingโ she was doing. While nine of the scientists conducted a climate-tracking ๏ฌeldwork on this tiny island, she was the lookout for polar bears. Apparently this was a very real prospect. And if she saw one, the very ๏ฌrst thing she had to do was ๏ฌre the ๏ฌare.ย ๎ขis would serve the dual purpose of a) frightening the bear away and b) warning the others.
It was not foolproof. Humans were tasty protein sources and the bears were not known for their fear, especially in recent years as the loss of habitat and food sources had made them ever more vulnerable and forced them to be more reckless.
โSoon as youโve ๏ฌred the ๏ฌare,โ said the eldest of the group, a beardless, sharp-featured man called Peter who was the ๏ฌeld leader, and who spoke in
a state of permanent fortissimo, โbang the pan with the ladle. Bang it like mad and scream.ย ๎ขey have sensitive hearing.ย ๎ขeyโre like cats. Nine times out of ten, the noise scares them o๏ฌ.โ
โAnd the other time out of ten?โ
He nodded down at the ri๏ฌe. โYou kill it. Before it kills you.โ
Nora wasnโt the only one with a gun.ย ๎ขey all had guns.ย ๎ขey were armed scientists. Anyway, Peter laughed and Ingrid patted her back.
โI truly hope,โ said Ingrid, laughing raspily, โyou donโt get eaten. I would miss you. So long as you arenโt menstruating, you should be okay.โ
โJesus. What?โ
โ๎ขey can smell the blood from a mile away.โ
Another person โ someone who was so thoroughly wrapped up it was impossible to tell who they were even if she had known them โ wished her โgood luckโ in a mu๏ฌed far-away voice.
โWeโll be back in ๏ฌve hours . . .โ Peter told her. He laughed again, and Nora hoped that meant it was a joke. โWalk in circles to keep warm.โ
And then they le๎ย her, walking o๏ฌย over the rocky ground and disappearing into the fog.
For an hour, nothing happened. Nora walked in circles. She hopped from le๎ย foot to right foot.ย ๎ขe fog thinned a little and she stared out at the landscape. She wondered why she was not back in the library. A๎er all, this was de๏ฌnitely a bitย shit.ย ๎ขere were surely lives where she was sitting beside a swimming pool in the sunshine right now. Lives where she was playing music, or lying in a warm lavender-scented bath, or having incredible third-date s*x, or reading on a beach in Mexico, or eating in a Michelin-starred restaurant, or strolling the streets of Paris, or getting lost in Rome, or tranquilly gazing at a temple near Kyoto, or feeling the warm cocoon of a happy relationship.
In most lives, she would have at least been physicallyย comfortable. And yet, she was feeling something new here. Or something old that she had long buried.ย ๎ขe glacial landscape reminded her that she was, ๏ฌrst and foremost, a human living on a planet. Almost everything she had done in her life, she realised โ almost everything she had bought and worked for and consumed โ had taken her further away from understanding that she and all humans were really just one of nine million species.
โIf one advances con๏ฌdently,โย ๎ขoreau had written inย Walden,ย โin the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.โ Heโd also observed that part of this success was the product of being alone. โI never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.โ
And Nora felt similarly, in that moment. Although she had only been le๎ย alone for an hour at this point, she had never experienced this level of solitude before, amid such unpopulated nature.
She had thought, in her nocturnal and suicidal hours, that solitude was the problem. But that was because it hadnโt been true solitude.ย ๎ขe lonely mind in the busy city yearns for connection because it thinks human-to-human connection is the point of everything. But amid pure nature (or the โtonic of wildnessโ asย ๎ขoreau called it) solitude took on a di๏ฌerent character. It became in itself a kind of connection. A connection between herself and the world. And between her and herself.
She remembered a conversation sheโd had with Ash. Tall and slightly awkward and cute and forever in need of a new songbook for his guitar.
๎ขe chat hadnโt been in the shop but in the hospital, when her mother was ill. Shortly a๎er discovering she had ovarian cancer, she had needed surgery. Nora had taken her mum to see all the consultants at Bedford General Hospital, and she had held her mumโs hand more in those few weeks than in all the rest of their relationship put together.
While her mum was undergoing surgery, Nora had waited in the hospital canteen. And Ash โ in his scrubs, and recognising her as the person heโd chatted to on many occasions in Stringย ๎ขeory โ saw she looked worried and popped in to say hi.
He worked at the hospital as a general surgeon, and sheโd ended up asking him lots of questions about the sort of stu๏ฌย he did (on that particular day heโd removed an appendix and a bile duct). She also asked about normal post-surgery recovery time and procedure times, and he had been very reassuring.ย ๎ขeyโd ended up talking for a very long time about all sorts of things, which he seemed to sense sheโd been in need of. Heโd said something about not over-googling health symptoms. And that had led to them talking about social media โ he believed that the more people were connected on social media, the lonelier society became.
โ๎ขatโs why everyone hates each other nowadays,โ he reckoned. โBecause they are overloaded with non-friend friends. Ever heard about Dunbarโs number?โ
And then he had told her about a man called Roger Dunbar at Oxford University, who had discovered that human beings were wired to know only a hundred and ๏ฌ๎y people, as that was the average size of hunter-gatherer communities.
โAnd the Domesday Book,โ Ash had told her, under the stark lighting of the hospital canteen, โif you look at the Domesday Book, the average size of an English community at that time was a hundred and ๏ฌ๎y people. Except in Kent. Where it was a hundred people. Iโm from Kent. We have anti-social DNA.โ
โIโve been to Kent,โ Nora had countered. โI noticed that. But I like that theory. I can meet that many people on Instagram in an hour.โ
โExactly. Not healthy! Our brains canโt handle it. Which is why we crave face-to-face communication more than ever. And . . . which is why I would never buy my Simon & Garfunkel guitar chord songbooks online!โ
She smiled at the memory, then was brought back to the reality of the Arctic landscape by the sound of a loud splash.
A few metres away from her, between the rocky skerry she was standing on and Bear Island, there was another little rock, or collection of rocks, sticking out of the water. Something was emerging from the sea froth. Something heavy, slapping against the stone with a great wet weight. Her whole body shaking, she got ready to ๏ฌre the ๏ฌare, but it wasnโt a polar bear. It was a walrus.ย ๎ขe fat, brown wrinkled beast shu๏ฌed over the ice, then stopped to stare at her. She (or he) looked old, even for a walrus.ย ๎ขe walrus knew no shame, and could hold a stare for an inde๏ฌnite amount of time. Nora felt scared. She only knew two things about walruses: that they could be vicious, and that they were never alone for very long.
๎ขere were probably other walruses about to haul out of the water. She wondered if she should ๏ฌre the ๏ฌare.
๎ขe walrus stayed where it was, like a ghost of itself in the grainy light, but slowly disappeared behind a veil of fog. Minutes went by. Nora had seven layers of clothing on, but her eyelids felt like they were sti๏ฌening and could freeze shut if she closed them for too long. She heard the voices of the others occasionally dri๎ย over to her and, for a while, her colleagues returned close
enough for her to see some of them. Silhouettes in the fog, hunched over the ground, reading ice samples with equipment she wouldnโt have understood. But then they disappeared again. She ate one of the protein bars in her rucksack. It was cold and hard as to๏ฌee. She checked her phone but there was no signal.
It was very quiet.
๎ขe quiet made her realise how much noise there was elsewhere in the world. Here, noise had meaning. You heard something and you had to pay attention.
As she was chewing there came another splashing sound, but this time from a di๏ฌerent direction.ย ๎ขe combination of fog and weak light made it hard to see. But it wasnโt a walrus.ย ๎ขat became clear when she realised the silhouette moving towards her was big. Bigger than a walrus, and much bigger than any human.
A Moment of Extreme Crisis in the Middle of Nowhereโ
โOhย fuck,โ whispered Nora, into the cold.
๎ปe Frustration of Not Finding a Library When You Really Need Oneโ
๎ขe fog cleared to reveal a huge white bear, standing upright. It dropped down to all fours and continued moving toward her with surprising velocity and a heavy and terrifying grace. Nora did nothing. Her mind was jammed with panic. She was as still as the permafrost she stood on.
Fuck.ย Fuck fuck.
Fuck fuck fucking fuck.ย Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
Eventually a survival impulse kicked in and Nora raised the signal pistol and ๏ฌred it, and the ๏ฌare shot out like a tiny comet and disappeared into the water, the glow fading along with her hope.ย ๎ขe creature was still coming towards her. She fell to her knees and started clanging the ladle against the saucepan and shouted at the top of her lungs.
โBEAR! BEAR! BEAR!โ
๎ขe bear stopped, momentarily. โBEAR! BEAR! BEAR!โ
It was now walking forward again.
๎ขe banging wasnโt working.ย ๎ขe bear was close. She wondered if she could reach the ri๏ฌe, lying on the ice, just slightly too far away. She could see the bearโs vast pawed feet, armed with claws, pressing into the snow-dusted rock. Its head was low and its black eyes were looking directly at her.
โLIBRARY!โ Nora screamed. โMRS ELM! PLEASE SEND ME BACK! THIS IS THE WRONG LIFE! IT IS REALLY, REALLY,ย REALLYย WRONG!
TAKE ME BACK! I DONโT WANT ADVENTURE! WHEREโS THE LIBRARY?! I WANT THE LIBRARY!โ
๎ขere was no hatred in the polar bearโs stare. Nora was just food. Meat. And that was a humbling kind of terror. Her heart pounded like a drummer reaching the crescendo.ย ๎ขe end of the song. And it became astoundingly clear to her, ๏ฌnally, in that moment:
She didnโt want to die.
And that was the problem. In the face of death, life seemed more attractive, and as life seemed more attractive, how could she get back to the Midnight Library? She had to be disappointed in a life, not just scared of it, in order to try again with another book.
๎ขere was death. Violent, oblivious death, in bear form, staring at her with its black eyes. And she knew then, more than sheโd known anything, that she wasnโt ready to die.ย ๎ขis knowledge grew bigger than fear itself as she stood there, face to face with a polar bear, itself hungry and desperate to exist, and banged the ladle against the saucepan. Harder. A fast, staccato bang bang bang.
Iโm. Not. Scared. Iโm. Not. Scared. Iโm. Not. Scared. Iโm. Not. Scared. Iโm. Not. Scared. Iโm. Not. Scared.
๎ขe bear stood and stared, the way the walrus had. She glanced at the ri๏ฌe. Yes. It was too far away. By the time she could grab it and work out how to ๏ฌre it, it would already be too late. She doubted sheโd be able to kill a polar bear anyway. So she banged the ladle.
Nora closed her eyes, wishing for the library as she carried on making noise. When she opened them, the bear was slipping head๏ฌrst into the water. She kept banging the saucepan even a๎er the creature had disappeared. About a minute later, she heard the humans calling her name through the fog.
