So there I was covered in motor oil (Joel McCollough's signature story opener)

This blog inspired from an entry in a shelter register quoting a paragraph from Hemingway. It did not say what it was but I like it enough to keep thinking about it.
Temperatures dropped steeply with the coming hurricane Danny which left many hikers unprepared for cold in August. In town the following day, most of the talk was taking place at the outfitters about the cold night spend. This is a romanticized version of my night.    

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There was no real alternative to bearing the elements for the evening so he marched on under the turbulent gray sky and past the cool breeze whisping in the air. At the shelter, the couple with the shy dog reorganized their possessions on one side, talked, ate in silence, smoked a cigarette, made plans and asked questions while all he though of reminded him of the cold night ahead. With the moon rising into the storm he counted miles and weighed options while fully dressed for battle in everything he carried and armored in a silver emergency blanket. The slash of the wind and spill of the mist on his face carried his dreams from color comfort to damp drab.  He awoke in the dark not knowing what else to do but turn his back to the cold to ignore it once more. When it was clear the shivering would not allow his sleep to come he pulled out the last reserve Handy Warmer and held it with tenderness. For a moment in the constant crinkle of wind abutting against plastic, his heart was warm and loved and he forgot about the cold and fell again to the night. If he'd slept until dawn a victory would have been his but the smell of cold on his nose made his eyes tear and in somber silence he emerged from the covers to give life to the deadened limbs. Ferociously awaiting the break of day in the impenetrable dark, he knew he was beaten. With thoughts of the  sunrise leading him off the mountain he struggled with the moisture condensating on the plastic covers, wetting his socks, contorting his body into an ever smaller ball of goose bump flesh. In the last hours of the night he concentrated the warmth he had left and perhaps his exhaustion pulled his eyelids closed because there was nothing else to be done. The morning would come no sooner than when he had given in.