The Glacier

A dying world. Transition. A future.

Part I: A dying world

The narrow grey tongue snakes down the steep incline, paving its way from just below the range’s highest peak, where it covers the easternmost shoulder, and into the high meadow, nourishing Lake Bohan. The small, greenish pool lies nestled in the mountains’ close embrace, a jewel among barren desolation, forming a popular camping destination, attracting people beyond the region and the rare visitor from afar. A dozen colorful tents stand dispersed on its shores, their thin plastic walls flapping in the soft August breeze. Sizzling barbecues and children’s laughter pierce the Alpine stillness. Ahead — much to Tomo’s annoyance — a drone buzzes and whines, its owner carefully maneuvering through the high winds.

Lucija, sitting on a mossy boulder, dips her toes into the crystal-clear water. She cries out in pain, surprised by the freezing cold.

Tomo laughs. “Told you, dear. That lake never warms.” He points up. “It’s fed right from the glacier. Or it was, at least. Now, it’s mainly the rains that fill it.”

Lucija isn’t deterred. She submerges her lower calves and then bravely lifts herself from the boulder to stand on the lake’s bottom. The water comes up to her knees, and she breathes hard, giggling all the while.

“Careful out there!”

She ignores her grandfather's warning and wades along the shoreline. She can barely feel anything below her knees now and marvels at the sight of her feet on the slippery, rounded rocks. They seem to belong to someone else — a person older and braver than her. Curious small fish examine her toes, and, for a moment, she's scared they’ll bite her. Distracted, her right foot drops into a narrow depression. She loses her balance and, with nothing to hold on to, plunges into the water.

The cold is magnificent. Immediately, the world ceases to matter, and all that is, all that ever will be, is that biting, breathtaking onslaught of tiny needles on skin. There's no breath, no movement, no time; for a moment, all that exists is pure sensation.

Something in her awakens. Her arms and legs flail, her body waging war against the lake's icy calling. She breaks through the surface and gasps, sucking in huge gulps of air as she tries to stay afloat. Her heart beats furiously, the cold water contracting her veins and sending adrenaline coursing through her bloodstream.

She feels a strong, familiar hand grip her arm. It pulls her up, and she sees Tomo’s face, his kind eyes filled with concern.

“Are you alright?” His voice is urgent.

Lucija nods, shivering and coughing up water. She notices people watching from the shoreline and feels embarrassed. The drone circles them like an angry wasp.

Tomo helps her to the shore, and, minutes later, she sits wrapped in blankets, watching the blue sky and the clouds that linger around Mount Treglav's glassy peak like lazy little sheep. She laughs, feeling a strange wave of joy wash over her.

“What's so funny?”

She turns to him. The sun is slowly warming her up, but she's still shaking. “Nothing, dida. I just feel so alive.”

---

They get the gas cooker going, and she watches tiny bubbles plop and disappear on the water's surface. She desperately wants to make a campfire, like the others did, but Tomo refuses, arguing that they'd destroyed enough already. He doesn’t explain what he means, and she doesn’t push the matter.

“Can I put it in now?”

“Yes, two should be enough.”

She drops the tea bags into the boiling water and notices how fast the color spreads. In a moment, water becomes tea, and the sweet smell of berries wafts into the tent.

Tomo unwraps the bureks and puts the tinfoil into a designated paper bag.

“When out in nature, you must always follow the golden rules,” he'd said on their hike up. “Minimize your impact, be mindful of your surroundings, and leave nothing behind. Nothing, you hear?” She'd nodded at the time but hadn't understood. Nature is great and big, right? Why should they have to be so careful?

He hands her a large piece, and she tears into it, surprised by her appetite. She misses the meat she's used to — in her family, no dish goes without — but savors the burek's fatty dough and diced potatoes.

As they eat and drink, the silence is only broken by occasional birdsong and the rustling of shrubbery in the wind. Lucija watches a family on the opposite shore playing frisbee in the dying light, their faint cries carrying across the lake.

“I used to come here with your baka,” Tomo says, breaking the quiet. “We'd stay for days, just reading, hiking in the mountains, and, uh… other things. Oh, she loved it here. She could sit for hours by the lake, watching the sun rise and set.”

Lucija has never met her grandmother, but she's often heard how much alike they are. She'd seen a picture of her as a child once, and it had been like looking into a mirror.

“It was a different time back then,” Tomo continues. “There were no drones, no loud music, no phones. People came here to find peace.”

Lucija nods, feeling a curious sense of nostalgia for a time she's never known. She wonders what it would be like to see the lake without tents, without people. Just her, and someone she loved perhaps, lying in the grass and watching the stars.

“Look at the glacier,” Tomo says, his eyes intense. “It's nothing now, almost gone. You should have seen it thirty or forty years ago. It covered that entire range over there, as broad as the mountains themselves and perfectly white, almost blinding when the sun hit it right.”

“Did you ever climb to the top, dida?”

He laughs. “Oh, yes. And it almost cost me my life. I'd borrowed some old crampons, a bivvy sack, and an ice pick from my brother and went up on the glacier, alone. Fell into a narrow crevasse halfway up and almost didn't make it out. It was freezing, I remember, and I had to decide whether I should push on or turn around. The day was getting late.”

“And what did you do?”

“I continued, of course. A couple of hours later, I reached the summit and yelled at the top of my lungs. Felt like the king of the world. I'm telling you, dear, nothing beats that feeling of challenging yourself and making it to the other side. I’ve never felt so alive, before or after.”

He stares into the distance, his gaze full of memories, happiness, and a deep sadness for what he’s lost. “The descent was even harder, mind you. It always is. I went down the southern side, opposite from what you see now. It got dark, and I had to camp out on a narrow ledge, freezing my ass off. In the morning, I made the descent and hiked into the village, feeling like the greatest man that's ever lived. Told everyone about it, and maybe half of them believed me.”

“I believe you, dida.”

“Thanks, dear. I know you do.”

“Will you go up again?”

A sad smile crosses his face, warm and cold at the same time. “Oh no, dear. I'm too old. This lake is my final stop now. When you're older, you can do it and wave to me from the summit. I'll be here, lying in the sun, with my feet in the water and a cold beer in my hand.”

Lucija shuffles closer and hugs her grandpa's arm. “I will do that, dida. I swear it! As soon as Mom and Dad let me.”

“I know you will. I hope I'll be there to see it.”

---

Part II: Transition

She knew what she would find, and yet the sight makes her feel as if a cold, empty void is climbing up her legs, enveloping her heart, and pressing upon her lungs. She shudders, her voice trembling. “It's gone. It's all gone.”

Footsteps behind her, a hand on her shoulder, but no words. He knows what she feels, and how she is, and dares not offer empty platitudes. There's nothing to say. Instead, he stays there, unmoving, until she finds her way back.

“I thought... I don't know what I thought…” She wipes at her eyes, but cannot conceal the tears running down her face.

Nikola remains silent and pulls her into a hug, a kiss on the nape of her neck. They stay like this for minutes until a heavy gust almost knocks them over. Then they separate and sit down on a boulder, away from the trail, eating granola bars and nuts for lunch.

It's autumn, and they're alone at Lake Bohan. Its surface — not quite frozen yet, but holding icy shoals that bob and dance on the mirror-like façade — ripples in the chilly wind, and there's an eerie, suffocating silence hanging upon the valley. They're surrounded by mountains, on a stage, giants watching their meager performance. A cauldron, made of eternity, and a glistening eye at its center.

Lucija turns her back on Mount Treglav, and it falls to Nikola to stare at the black vista of pebbles and boulders that delineate where once a majestic river of ice flowed. There's nothing left but a shattering feeling of loss.

“Bears, wolves, foxes, deer, and other wildlife used to roam this area, free and unrestrained. Can you imagine?”

Her voice is a dry whisper. “I honestly can't.”

“A couple of years ago, they killed the last brown bear in the region. There was a paper about it. She killed some sheep, and they could not have that.”

She scoffs. “I can imagine that.”

“There used to be tens of thousands, possibly more, and now there are none. Except for livestock and pets, we're the only large mammal left.” There's a sad smile on his face, the wind ruffling his sweaty hair. “Soon, we'll be the last animal altogether, Lucija, and then we'll be gone too.”

“The earth will heal then,” she says and turns to look at the glacier's remains. The dry moraines and fjords that bear witness to its existence, the long blanket of debris and pebbles that molds into the lake. “Nothing is forever. Least of all us.”

---

The ascent is harder than she imagined. Her muscles ache with every step, joints straining, heart pounding as she struggles to keep a steady rhythm. Nikola leads the way, his steps easy and sure, yet she recognizes the tension in his body, the worry etched on his face. They're climbing up the glacier's remains, witness to sapiens’ destructive potential, the annihilation of history. It feels like defiling a grave.

The wind whips at their faces, the air thin and cold. Nikola had warned her about the altitude, but she'd brushed it off, like so many other things in her life. It seems that only death and grief can shake her from apathy and ignorance, and what a fitting stage she finds here: a landscape, barren and unforgiving, rocks jutting up like broken teeth, cutting like glass. The trail is narrow and slippery, rubble shifting under their feet, fingernails digging into loose dirt until everything feels numb. Nikola is always ahead — oh, how he reminds her of grandfather — a reassuring presence in the swirling mist, and the rain that turns into hail.

She wonders why anyone would come up here, why they would push past the pain and the fear and keep going. What drives them? What are they escaping from that they must suffer to feel?

Nikola pauses, turning to look at her with a gentle smile. “We're almost there,” he says, sensing her doubts. “Just a little further.”

She nods, but her legs feel like lead, her mind screaming at her to turn back — turn back right now! — but she can't, she won't, not for anything. It's the least she can do, for she wasn't there for him, in the end, when he suffered, and she never got to wave to him from the summit. There's always time, it seems, until, without notice, the ground becomes a cliff, and regret a deep hole without light.

---

Summit, at last. Mount Treglav and its siblings made subject, defeated and conquered, owned and named.

She collapses to her knees, gasping for air. The view is breathtaking, but her vision is blurred with tears. Nikola holds her, his body warm and comforting, and she feels his heart's heavy beating, a rhythm that echoes the song of the mountains. Incredibly, they see a falcon soaring, its wings spread wide and free. She envies the creature, wondering what it must be like to fly, fly away, and find solace in the endless sky. Wherever he is, she hopes he can see her now.

“Thank you for bringing me here.”

Nikola smiles, thinking the words his, his eyes scanning the horizon. “It's worth it, isn't it?” he says. “It's a different world up here.”

With shaking hands, she opens her pack and removes the delicate urn from its protective layers. Nikola watches, his expression turning to one of solemn understanding.

Together, they approach the edge of the summit. The wind buffets them as they stand on the precipice, where life and death deal in delicate balance. Without hesitation, she opens the urn, holds it up to the sky, and lets the ashes scatter and blend with the world. The wind carries them away, melting them into the mountains and the clouds until they are nothing but a memory in the relentless march of change.

“He's here now,” she says. “And here he will remain.”

She waves.

---

Part III: A future

With old age comes wisdom, they say, but Lucija feels only exhaustion and muffled pain. She rests in the camping chair, drowsy from the pills, her granddaughter beside her, and by all means, she should feel... something.

Lake Bohan looks the same as it did decades ago, when she came here with her grandfather, and then, again, when Nikola led her up Mount Treglav. Their ashes belong to the earth now, she thinks, stricken with grief, and still, her heart beats. For ninety years it has now, and she can feel the clockwork slowing, until, inevitably, something must give.

“Happy birthday, baka!” says Andrea, her round face already burning up in the sun. She's in her bathing suit but hasn't dared put more than a toe into the freezing water. “Is it as you imagined?”

Lucija smiles and caresses the little girl's dark hair. “It is, my dear. Thank you all so much.”

“This isn't all, mama,” says Kristijan, struggling with the tent's poles. “You'll see tomorrow.”

“I hope you don't expect me to climb up there.” She nods toward the grey mountain range, to which she’ll forever be bound by memory and loss.

They laugh. “We wouldn't dare,” says Sofija, putting a hand on her husband's shoulder. “You're too heavy to carry, Lucija.”

---

In the evening, they sit under the stars, drinking tea and eating grah soup. Andrea complains, as she always does when her father makes the hearty broth of beans and onions, but still, she gobbles the food like a hungry little wolf, sprinkling the table with fatty liquid. The traditional recipe calls for pork ribs, Lucija remembers, but there hasn't been a live pig in years. She remembers how controversial her grandfather's vegetarianism had been back in the day and smiles at the absurdity of it all.

“You alright, Lucija?” asks Sofija. She had tried helping her husband, but cooking has always been Kristijan's domain, and he could be quite pedantic about it.

“Of course, dear. Why shouldn't I be?”

“Your eyes," she says. "They don’t look happy.”

Lucija sighs. “I'm just tired, don't you worry. Wait till you're ninety, and then you’ll see how it feels.”

Kristijan comes over with an inconspicuous half-full glass bottle. The label says ‘mineral water,’ but as soon as he removes the cap, the strong, biting smell of alcohol penetrates the crisp evening air. Lucija smiles. Andrea is fast asleep in the tent, and he pours them three shots of rakija. They gulp it down together, and, for a moment, everything burns, until a soothing warmth spreads in their bellies. Lucija calls for another one — this stuff is better than any pill. They drink it down, grimacing and groaning like teenagers.

“I can't imagine what it must have been like,” Sofija says. “The things you've seen, Lucija... Rain forests, glaciers, icebergs, penguins, elephants... It must have been a different world.”

“It was, dear.” Lucija feels the rakija doing its work. In her younger days, she could have emptied that bottle all by herself, but now she feels her head spinning already. “But I've also watched it die and did nothing. There was death all around me, and I chose to ignore it. I've lived my life in an office, Sofija, staring at a screen and doing useless work for others while the world went to hell.”

“Hey, mama, don't talk like that. You did well.” Kristijan looks at her, and there's an intensity in his eyes. “Besides, not everything is dead. There's still hope. We will rebuild.”

She wants to say that as a climate scientist, he must think that — is compelled to think that — but bites her tongue. What purpose would her cynicism serve now? Her time is over. Let the younger generations try at least. Let them dream, for as long as they can, in this world she and her like destroyed.

---

“Wake up, mama.”

Lucija opens her eyes to find Kristijan standing over her. It's still dark outside, and she's disoriented and groggy. The memories of last night's conversation come flooding back, and she feels a pang of regret. Damn that rakija.

“Morning,” she whispers, pushing herself up. Sofija and Andrea are still fast asleep.

Kristijan hands her a steaming cup of coffee. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” she lies, taking a sip of the bitter liquid. “Why did you wake me?”

“Drink your coffee, put on some warm clothes, and then we'll go for a walk, mama. Just you and me.”

She follows Kristijan outside, feeling a chill in the air. The sun hasn't risen yet, but a streak of pink has appeared on the horizon, slowly reaching up. The sound of wind-driven waves lapping against the lake's shores fills her ears.

“Where are we going, Kristijan? You know I can't walk for long and —”

“Don't worry, mama. We're taking the glider.”

They reach the flat meadow where they'd landed the day before. The glider rests in stark contrast to the surrounding landscape, its solar skin glinting in the early light. A strange, foreign contraption, almost alien. Lucija had been hesitant about taking it to come up here — how much metal is in that thing? How many resources, rare earths extruded violently from the ground? How many working hours? Such a grandiose waste, all of it, she thought — but Kristijan had convinced her that she couldn't have made the journey otherwise.

“The batteries should be full,” he says. “It was sunny yesterday.”

He helps her inside, strapping her in with care and making sure she's comfortable. Then he climbs into the cockpit and, seconds later, the glider takes off with barely a whisper. Soon, they're soaring above the shrubbery, the mountains stretching out in the distance.

Lucija feels that sense of weightlessness and freedom again, the same that had carried that falcon over Mount Treglav so many years ago, but it feels artificial and unnatural. Another attempt at becoming more than they deserve. Kristijan doesn't notice. He appears cheerful, pointing out mountains, lakes, and rivers, explaining their significance, how they'd formed, and what would become of them in millions and billions of years, when they'd be all that's left.

How can he be so... cheerful? And when did she become so bitter?

“And you know that peak, of course,” he says, pointing. And she does. How could she not? She remembers her grandfather's ashes scattering in the cold, biting wind, and Nikola at her side. She grips the edges of her seat, her hands white as death.

“It's alright, mama,” he says, squeezing her hand. “We're not going there. We're going further.”

The glider rises until the world loses color, and then still they rise, breaking through the clouds with brilliant, warm light flooding the cockpit. It's blinding, disorienting, nauseating, but also so very exhilarating. Lucija can't help laughing. To her side, Kristijan is whooping with joy, and soon she joins in.

What beauty and terror, she thinks, what insignificance in the face of the grand, the preposterousness to think themselves death. What are we, in the passing of the uncounted eons, in the vastness of the mountains and the oceans, the eternity of the sun? A blip, a curious anomaly, soon forgotten. And from all that grandiosity is born the small and the weak, and if you cannot protect and cherish that, then all else falls as well.

“Mama,” he says. “We're almost there.”

There's another great mountain range ahead, its peaks white and ragged and glassy in the sun. They reflect with such brilliance that Lucija has to avert her eyes.

“The Planička Range,” Kristijan explains. “The highest mountains in this part of the world.” He hesitates. “It's where I have worked for the last eleven years.”

She’s surprised. “I thought you worked at the university?”

“I do, mama. This is part of the project. Sofija works here too. In fact, it’s our home now. There's even a school for Andrea.”

“What project? What are you talking about, Kristijan?”

He just smiles. “You'll see.”

They fly in silence, among the mountain peaks and clouds, so close she can almost touch the ice, and to her right, she sees something incredible. It looks like an array of drones, but the patterns they form, seemingly shifting at random, are far too intricate, far too... alive.

“I-Is that...?”

“Yes, mama. Birds. They're back.”

“But how? I thought —”

“I'll explain when we get there.”

They leave the mountains behind and watch a striking vista of green opening up. An endless carpet of trees, crisscrossed by brooks and streams, speckled with ponds. The glider approaches a clearing to the west, not far from the mountain range that guards this valley like a row of giants.

“Do you remember when the governments fell, mama?”

“Of course. You were just a boy, but your father and I were right in the midst. I remember when they stopped counting the dead. One day, they'd say a billion, the next, two billion, and then they went silent.” She turns to him. “Kristijan, where are you taking me?”

He lands the glider and helps her out. They walk along a narrow trail lined by trees and bushes. There are flowers in the grass, and the air is thick and sweet. Pollen swirls in the breeze, tickling their nostrils and making their eyes itch.

“Many of the universities held out when everything went to hell, mama, and they stayed in contact with each other. What you see here” — he spreads his arms — “is the greatest conservation effort in history.”

They arrive at what looks like a village. A neat cluster of wooden houses, simple and rustic, yet elegant. People are scuttling about, young and old, from all around the world. Lucija recognizes at least ten different languages, and they turn to her with curiosity.

“This is our home,” Kristijan says. “And we want you to live here with us. We call it Sloboda.”

“Freedom? Why?”

“Because it's exactly that.” He walks ahead and turns to her. “Come on, mama.”

They scramble up a grassy hill, Kristijan holding her arm. The ground is slippery and treacherous. It must have rained not long ago.

“How is this possible?” she asks, out of breath. “The world is dying.”

“It's not, mama. Well, not anymore. Most of it is already dead, but now it's changing, too. As it has for billions of years.” He thinks for a moment. “You know about that seed vault in Svalbard, right?”

“The one they blew up?”

“Yes. This is the same thing but with living specimens. We've collected and preserved as many as we could and set the most resistant, the most suitable to this climate, free. They've been transforming this area for a while now, and some things have survived. Some animals managed to thrive. The birds you saw, and small mammals like rabbits and rodents. Snakes and frogs, too, and countless insects. It’s all highly volatile and unstable, but we dare not interfere anymore. We just let it take its own path and observe.”

She halts, disbelief and a flicker of anger on her face. “Kristijan. Why didn't you tell me?”

He sighs. “I'm sorry, mama. It was too dangerous, too uncertain. We moved here just a year ago, after making absolutely certain the ecosystem could handle it. We're experimenting with surviving off the land, but it's all still in the early stages and our supplies are limited. Our food still arrives by drones, and we rely on external solar panel replacements and the like. There's still so much to do. Also,” his tone grows solemn, “there are groups that would exploit this. Few know about Sloboda, and it must stay this way until we are certain. Until we can help others.”

They continue walking. “It’s beautiful, son, it is, but you're just playing God again, that’s what you're doing.”

“Yes, mama, we are. We’ve always been. But God left a long time ago. If we do nothing, it'll take much, much longer.”

They climb in silence for a while, and there's so much Lucija wants to say, so many questions and concerns — the sheer arrogance, the elitism, everything. Instead, she says nothing, for there's nothing left to lose anyway, and there just might be a chance in what they’re doing here.

Soon, they reach the crest and recline on an improvised bench, little more than a couple of branches woven together. “It's not just about the world, mama,” he says. “It's also about us. We must find our way back while moving forward at the same time. It's hard and it might not work, but it's worth a try, I think.”

She remains silent, and he takes this for acceptance, or at least tolerance. It's enough.

From their vantage point, they can see the entire mountain range. Kristijan points. “Do you see it, mama?”

“What?”

“The glacier. Between Mount Dinara, over there, and Mount Volojak.”

“I see it.” She follows the broad white tongue meandering down the mountains and remembers her grandfather's story. How he fell into the crevasse and then scrambled out, all by himself, sheer willpower and resilience, and then climbed to Mount Treglav's summit. He’s still there, and Nikola too. “What about it, Kristijan?”

“It's growing, mama.”

“Growing? It's not growing, it's just —”

“It is. A couple of centimeters every year, for quite some time now.”

She’s stunned, speechless for a while. “How?”

He takes her hand. “It's changing, mama. Everything’s changing. Always.”

A bee buzzes past her ear and lands on a dandelion. The air crackles with static as a storm draws closer, anticipation building on the horizon. So it is, she thinks as lightning illuminates their tiny world for the briefest moment.

---

Thanks for reading! Please consider becoming a paid subscriber here on Substack to support my humble work. I depend on voluntary subscriptions and donations. You can also become a Patreon supporter or buy me a coffee or something via Stripe.