COLD

By Clark Frauenglass

White Sands

October 22, 2015

Harriet and I decided to spend the night in hammocks rather than deal with unpacking and repacking our tents for just one night. Everything was great until about 2 in the morning, when I woke up to the realization that I was earth-shatteringly cold. I could feel the heat leaching out of my body through the bottom of the hammock. The skin on my back felt frozen. Trapped in my sleeping bag, afraid that any sudden movements might spill the hammock, I quietly sang all the sun related songs I could thing of, praying for morning to hurry the hell up already! 3 hours later, unable to stand the cold a minute longer, I threw caution to the wind, fell out of my hammock, and made a made dash for the van, wearing my sleeping bag like a cape. There I spent the remaining hour of darkness wondering why I hadn’t moved sooner.  Harriet stuck it out.