The Ice King: EDEN miniatures, #4

By FREI

"Deep inside the glacier lives The Ice King, supple and smooth. His skin is aglow with the cold, and unbelievably soft. He should be milky white, but there's an olive tint to his hue, and no sooner do I see him, than I want to touch him."

The Ice King is a poetic short story about life in a world of the senses and the expanded mind.

EDEN miniatures are twelve texts originally publlished online as EDEN by FREI – a concept narrative in the here & now about the where, the wherefore and forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Optimist Books by Optimist Creations
• Release date: Mar 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386642770

Book preview

1: The Chamber

Deep inside the glacier lives The Ice King, supple and smooth. His skin is aglow with the cold, and unbelievably soft. He should be milky white, but there’s an olive tint to his hue, and no sooner do I see him, than I want to touch him. Without gesture or words, he demurs.

He wears no clothes, but it is clear that he’s warm; he’s in his element. He is The Ice King, and he doesn’t beckon or smile: he stands at the end of the hall that is lined with blue-sheened green walls of ice. They look soft, insubstantial, but they are hard as stone: centuries of gravity have worked them into solid rock. I close my eyes for a moment; the smell of the ice is clean and pure.

I slowly move towards him, and as each step feels heavier with uncertain awe, my head gets lighter. I realise, for him I’ll have to be all or nothing. Already I am sensing that heat, and I’m twenty, thirty feet from him yet. There, at the end of the hall, tall with ice and nothing else, is a gateway, a passageway, in which he stands; he has no need for me, but I am beholden to him now: I slowly advance, and as I do I have to let go; I have