Normandia - 1

I

I was told I was born in the bitter cold.  But the cold I have only felt once.  When I was just a boy, my father took me to the edge of the marshland near my home.  With his great axe and his mighty hands, he crushed the ice.  The ice crackled and popped under his powerful axe.  As mighty as he was, the ice gave way slowly, and by the time he was through my young puerile heart was far off playing with the snow in the trees.  I still remember the grasp of his woolly mittens around my neck, as he carried me back onto the ice before a sensation overtook me that I will never forget. Thousands of sharp knives pierced my body and caused the most painful sensation I have ever felt ripple through my body, threatening to rend me in two.  The pain engulfed me, and I realized I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t swallow, I was frozen in time.  I lay there in that state, hopeless, motionless, dancing with death.

My eyes flashed open, and the same stinging sensation shot through them as they froze in place, and I understood where I was.  I was underwater, I was floating just inches beneath the surface, and my father’s mighty hands held me tight.  I started to struggle, I kicked and clawed at his hands, and I felt my body being raised from the depths hearing his deep resonating laugh.

“My boy!”  He said within his deep guffaws, “today you have become a man.”  I went to shiver but realized my face wasn’t cold anymore, my eyes were fixed on the enormous smile on my father’s face, and I realized a warm, yet childish smile was issuing from my own face as well.  Since that day, I have known no cold,

For I was a Viking.

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