What if, one day, the ocean had frozen over into the world's largest ice rink?
Victor dreamt of it once. While revisiting the beach of his hometown, fractured visions of his dream from the night before passed through his thoughts in waves, in accordance with the slow tide at his feet. Victor gradually paced across the arctic beach the morning after awakening, leaving behind deep footprints in the snow where the familiar sound of crushing sand brought out a striking sense of belonging – like returning home. And the water greeted him then. The gentle noise of the overlapping tides would flicker in salute, disrupted only by Makkachin as his tiny paws dug excitedly across the ground. Every now and again, the poodle hopped to Victor's side to brush his cold nose against Victor's hand, like comforting reminders that he was still there.
Flakes of ice shimmered from the sky in faint showers, and stairways to Heaven emitted through the clouds like glittering spotlights in the distance. The horizon was lined up with these spotlights, highlighting the edge of the Earth where Victor envisioned the rink to stretch into, spanning on and on into the unfathomable void of forever…
He yawned. Reality and fantasy interlinked through the daze of his exhaustion. The early morning was emphasised by its violet-coated skyline, speckled with a touch of visible stars where the clouds couldn't cover. The rose-pink spectrum extended across the ocean surface, setting the snow on the shores ablaze in its aftermath. It was like a scene from a well-crafted sci-fi, where the Earth couldn't possibly take credit for this beautiful creation – it was almost too fantastical.
But it was too easy to imagine the place as unearthly, as the untouched tundra of snow looked completed devoid of a presence. Only Victor and Makkachin would visit that place on an intensely cold day like that. Winds would carry tufts of snow across the planes, as if the bitter frost would lift with it. Victor watched his breath escape in puffs of smoke after every heavy exhale. It was so cold, so empty, distant and unworldly… Victor felt completely at home. The ocean, his guardian.
He wondered in moments like those whether loneliness felt so normalised because it was something he became used to. Not by choice. Not out of obligation to commit to his career. It just came to be, creeping so slowly into shaping his life and his character – into someone who found himself to be alone, completely by accident.
Victor could find a million and one theories that lead to that point; by practising so much on his skills, he neglected to keep up relationships with anyone outside the skating community. Or by focusing so much on his skating, Victor's priorities unknowingly shifted until he immersed himself in his own world for too long, and found no one waiting once he stepped out of it. He wondered if his loneliness was one he created, and came as a price for the pursuit of success. The pursuit for what he thought he wanted.
That feeling of loneliness continued like a dull dial tone, humming ever-so persistently in the back of his mind. Looking over at the ocean, at his dream rink, there was only Victor in its reflection. A misty haze clouded over the faces of his surrounding audience, as the distant echo of applause sounded like broken distortion over the tide, and there wasn't one face he recalled to love or recognise. A sadness resounded. And it hurt.
Then, right before his eyes, the ocean stood still. A gathering of snow blanketed over its surface and sheathed its entirety in ice, as if drops of crystals pooled into solid puddles, and spread as quickly as a virus. Soon enough the ocean froze over. The wind had dropped, and the only sound that could be heard was the metallic clash of Victor's skates cutting through the ice. The opportunity presented itself and he took it, quickly, willingly. Victor cast off the scarf that choked him and the coat that restricted him, and bolted from the snowy shores to glide across the newly formed rink as fast as this reality allowed.
The taste of this freedom was thrilling, with a touch of adrenaline that he longed for. The world's largest rink, just for him to skate on, with all the space of the Earth to use – it was jarring how much the concept alone excited him. Without hesitance, Victor skated onwards, pumping his feet with the elegance and grace of a prima donna, turning on his heels every so often to look back at where he started… to see the edge of the snow-white shores drifting off into the distance. The faster that Victor skated, the farther he strayed from the civilization he once knew.
But there was no attachment to anything in that life that tied him down, not any more. So Victor felt no sense of mourning. He kept aimlessly skating, dancing, spinning, moving in tune to the rhythm of his metronome steps, until there was no more differentiating the colours of the ice with the sky – the illusion of skating through air enraptured him. And with nothing surrounding him, with nothing to distract him, or anything left in his way, there was only the ice and himself. To skate. To embrace freedom on his own terms. To continue to love no one. To have no one to love.
Until the ice finally ran out. Victor had suddenly reached the horizon where the spotlights shone – the edge of the Earth. The ground abruptly ended, then there was nothing but a steep drop into an empty abyss below his feet. Victor fell backwards, headfirst into the bright unknown. His heart sharply plummeted to his stomach, but only for a moment. Acceptance came fast and quick, as if time had stunted the moment Victor dropped off the edge, and in those final moments of falling down into the chasm, all he could do and all he wanted to do… was close his eyes. And fall.
"…uhhruff." Makkachin whined loud enough to shake Victor out of his senses.
The hollow glaze in Victor's eyes dispersed, and life returned within them. Victor nearly choked on his own surprise after regaining consciousness, and stumbled forward to find himself standing knee-deep in ice cold water. For a moment, Victor could only revel in this discovery, as if he'd been unknowingly thrown into the ocean while he slept. His eyes, then wide and full of unquestionable emotion, shook without cause to blink. And almost desperately, he waded backwards through the water, and staggered back to shore. The bitter cold erased the strength in his legs, and Victor fell backwards into the snow.
Deep breaths shuddered past his lips. Victor's fingers interlaced over his mouth, over his nose, as he gazed in teary awe at the sky. He discovered the dream and all the visions that it prompted came with layers upon layers of gut-wrenching dread that paralysed him the deeper they unravelled. And for the first time, Victor came face-to-face with a deathly fear – like drowning on dry land, like screaming with no voice, it was the inescapable feeling of no hope in sight. And the terrifying realisation that there was no struggle to fight by the end.
Loneliness. Toxic loneliness took him to the edge of the world, and he pushed himself off.
But, it was in this pit of hellish darkness that Victor came to realise what he wanted, and what he needed. By acknowledging what was so sorely strange about him, he knew himself more. There was so much love withheld in his heart, lying dormant inside him, yet he had no one to give it all to. It felt like there was an entire well of it, containing too much all at once, and it constantly overflowed. It needed to burst so desperately, spilling through cracks in the walls every now and again, coming out as forms of cries for help.
Suddenly Makkachin flopped to the snow by his shoulder. In a breath of relief, Victor rolled over and cradled his arm over the puppy's tiny body. Makkachin playfully turned over, goading Victor for belly rubs, to which the man laughed and complied wholeheartedly. Thank God for Makkachin. He was a band-aid for the wound that'd been opening. Victor buried his face in his fur, nuzzling into him for a comforting hug, though the puppy was too excitable to lay down for too long. Makkachin caught the smell of something far off, and shuffled through the snow in search for whatever captured his interest. Victor loved him very much… but his arms were empty. The cracks in the well corroded even more.
What Victor wanted at that moment was someone to hold on to. He could envision the feeling of it in his arms, like phantoms from a fantasy, but by doing so, felt a little pathetic. It was almost like he converted back to his childish days, when clinging on to something felt like a necessity and not a sign of weakness. There was an image that his championship created in everyone's eyes that he felt he had to uphold: to play the role of an unshakable expert in skating, ever formidable, ever powerful. He was trained never to falter on the ice, therefore never in life. But sometimes he'd gaze to duet performers in quiet, dubious envy, knowing that some skaters had partners to lift them up, carry them through the narrative of their piece, and formulate a feeling in their performances that soloists couldn't ever create on their own.
Victor sometimes watched from the side-lines of the rink, when a duo completed their program no matter how much they fail or how much they succeed, he watched these skaters share the burden of their feelings with each other at the end – by a hug, by a touch, by a glance. There's an indescribable feeling that they understand and they share together, whether they're in tears or smiles by the end, there's so much strength together as a pair.
Whereas Victor was a wounded soldier, battling the ice empty-handed on an Earth-sized rink alone.
He knew what he wanted then. But whether he'd ever find love was another painful combat to endure. After so many years of turning a blind eye to dating, he felt almost too hesitant to suddenly throw himself out there without building some kind of protective guard to mask these vulnerabilities tossing him to the edge. Victor knew how to be flirty, he was confident in himself enough as a skater to rely on his carefree personality, but if those suggestive words ever carried more weight than he'd meant them to, then he knew it'd hurt if it all backfired. At least by playing it off as a personality trait, he'd hold off on the to hope of a relationship forming if nothing is ever received. As long as he doesn't get too deep into something that wouldn't be reciprocated, he knew he'll be fine.
He'll be fine. I'll be fine.
One-sided loves always hurt. Not knowing if the other person will feel the same is agonising. But to risk it anyway, with one foot over the edge of that deadly plunge at the end of the Earth, Victor wanted more than anything to experience a mutual love with someone. To wake up next to someone in the early hours of the morning, to have his arm go numb as their head rested against him, to be grateful having met this wonderful person who breathes new life into him… just to love. Victor wanted it so much it hurt.
For now the beach is what he had. His frozen home. And Makkachin too, as the puppy trotted back over and to jump over his lap. Victor held him close, desperately, and tight enough so that he couldn't wriggle free. Makkachin didn't struggle at all, he just lay limp and relaxed in his family's arms. Victor stayed like that in silence for a while, with his cold face buried in the poodle's fur, as his thoughts wandered back and forth to the dream he once had. About the ocean made of ice… about the horizon coated in spotlights… and the plunging void once he'd reach the very end.
Victor hoped instead that, one day, he'd dream about meeting someone instead. Someone who'd become so special to him. With a connection as strong as any duet skater. Someone who'd think of him as much as he knew he'd think about them. Someone to burst open the walls of well inside of him, receiving and reciprocating all the love that he'd held in for so long.
Victor hoped he'd dream of that someday, knowing that once he does, there'd be no stopping the real pursuit for what he wanted… the pursuit for who he wanted. Even if it meant leaving this cold salt-water home, he'd leave it all for the home he'd find with them. Wherever that is, whoever that is – he'd skate a distance as long and as far as an ice rink the size of the ocean.