Prompt: tell your version of how The Ice Man died
These were Otzi’s mushrooms, and no one was going to take them away
from him. For days he had toiled high in the mountains, gathering every fungi
he found. With bag half full he made his way down to the mountain, gathering
more mushrooms as he went. He could see smoke ahead of him now. Otzi’s
neighbours were very impressed with themselves for their new invention. He
didn’t see the point. Food tasted just fine without fire anyhow.
He hugged his cloak more securely around himself as a gust of wind
tried to rip it away. He’d won it in a fight the day before yesterday. The
other man had got in a few good cuts, leaving Otzi’s chest sore and purple, but
Otzi had kept the upper hand, and now the cloak’s first owner was floating down
the river. After Otzi had helped himself to his axe of course.
The mushrooms were thinning out the further down Otzi got. He turned
back around and started up the mountain again. He needed more if this were
every going to work.
Bag mostly full, Otzi congratulated himself on a job well done,
wincing as he sat down. Once again he reached for his lower back as another
blinding pain shot through him. He never should have tried to grab the arrow.
It’d never come out now he’d broken the shaft off. Still, fleeing for his life from the cloak owner’s
brother he’d been full of stupid ideas. He reached for it again in vain. Even
if he could grab hold of the spot in his back where the arrow had broken off,
how would he dig it out? It’s not as if he could cut himself open. No, the
mushrooms were his only hope. He pulled out a handful of mushrooms and smashed
them between two rocks. Folks said these mushrooms were magic. They could even
heal a man. Otzi scooped up a handful of mashed up mushrooms and took a huge
bite, then spat it out in disgust. Why’d the mushrooms have to be magic? Why
couldn’t it have been magic goat’s meat instead? Otzi wouldn’t’ve had a problem
with that.
Grimacing, he finished off the mushroom paste, swallowed it down
with berries and dried bear meat, then sat and waited for the magic to take
effect. An hour passed. Then another. The arrowhead was still in his back and
Otzi was growing bored. He got up and
started climbing again. Everything was starting to look hazy. There were
colours in front of him that Otzi had never seen on the mountain before. It
was beautiful. Otzi was beautiful. Everything was beautiful. He stopped
walking. At least he thought he had. The world wasn’t holding still so maybe
Otzi was still moving. Someone was behind him. Otzi heard voices. He pulled out
his dagger, but forgot about the attackers as soon as he noticed how beautiful
his hand was. Had Otzi always had hands? He had two of them? Wonderful,
beautiful hands. Wonderful, beautiful Otzi. He held his hands to his face,
dagger still clutched in his fist.
The whole world was purple now, and Otzi thought it was beautiful.
Beautiful purple, beautiful hands, beautiful pile of rocks that Otzi wanted to
float over like a bird sailing over the beautiful water. Only rocks weren’t
good for floating. Now Otzi was falling. Falling, falling. Hadn’t he always
been falling? Wasn’t that what life was? Falling?
There was a loud crack, and all the colours disappeared.
