Cold cut through every exposed inch of skin like a knife. Wool and fleece and neoprene worked in unison but were unable to achieve success. Numbed fingers struggled with the most basic knots; hope was used as much as monofilament. The stream was the only moving thing in the stark winter landscape. Patches of snow were scattered throughout the valley, but their whiteness only pointed out the surrounding grey. Trees stood still and barren as if dead, The ground itself was frozen as solid as the random protruding stones. Here and there, ice formed around rocks and downed logs at the edge of the stream. Normally, these would be spots where trout would hold. But the cold had come. The freeze was creeping deeper into the hollow. Each step meant going deeper into the bleak, like a descent into some new kind of madness that…

And I fell on a rock.

Flat on my back. Like in a cartoon.

It was fast and slow at the same time. I’m thinking I looked like Wile E. Coyote. In one sense I appreciate that. I love Looney Tunes. If it is my time to go, I want to go because I get an anvil dropped on me. Or a piano. Or I get hit by a comically large mallet. I just ask that “The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down” be played at the memorial service. After “Amazing Grace,” of course.

But seriously, on that day on that Shenandoah stream I stepped wrong. That’s pretty much certain. I can’t recall if it was too much lateral movement on the ice or if I was distracted. Knowing me, it was at least both. Regardless I went up and horizontal. I saw the sky. I saw the trees in relief. It was long enough that I can remember it (or at least a composite version of it) to this day. But then I landed.

To be honest, slipping wasn’t the problem. Weightlessness is pleasant. Ascending is the fun part. Ask Icarus. He didn’t fly all that way because it wasn’t a hoot. Perhaps I would have enjoyed it a little more if it wasn’t foisted upon me. If I would have known I was going to be propelled like a gravity defying lemming I might have really taken it all in.

As Tyrone Davis sung in his 1974 R&B almost hit, “What Goes Up (Must Come Down),” what goes up must come down. I assume Tyrone never fell on a cold rock, which is the only reason I can fathom that he’d put the second half of the song title in parenthesis. From my newfound vantage point, the (Must Come Down) part deserved all-caps at bare minimum.

First I checked my fly rod. Priorities. What good is a healthy spine if your 3-weight is broken, am I right? Then I  looked around me. Did anyone in the middle of nowhere see me? I was young. This mattered. After all the important stuff, I took inventory of internal organs, bones, joints, etc. All systems go. But I didn’t escape unscathed. There was a hole in my glove because I foolishly used my hand to break my fall. It was somewhat for naught, anyway, as I had still come down with enough force on my back to crack my net.

I saw a bottle in my future. Two, actually.

A bottle of Shoe Goo for my noeoprene glove, and a bottle of wood glue for my net. At that age, barely missing death via getting knocked unconscious and slowly sliding into a freezing river was financially less disconcerting than some busted up gear. Ah, youth. My friend, fishing just up and around the bend, would surely have mourned the loss of the net as he pulled my blue and embarrassed corpse from the icy waters. I still have those gloves and that net: monuments to my own, personal “To Build a Fire” moment. Tragedy. Triumph. Try not to do that again?

And that is the end of the story. I fell down. Hard. I lived to tell the tale. I think I’m a little wiser, but I am not entirely sure. Because, as Isaac Newton once said: “You never know if you are going to slip when you step on ice. And let me tell you, buddy, you’re going to step on ice. Trust me. I’m Isaac Newton.”