The rats gnawed relentlessly at my gut but they talked good sense too. There was only one way for me to keep alive. Eat. And there was only one thing to eat.
María.
Or, as I would have to think of it from now on if I were to remain sane, the corpse that had once been María.
It was a ghastly prospect but it was reality and it revolved over and over in my thoughts. María’s body would be preserved in the intense cold of the snow in which I’d buried it. But the thought of even touching it, never mind undressing it and cutting it up, was totally repugnant to me. The mound where my eyes kept wandering was a shrine, a holy place. Her grave, for God’s sake.
I dismissed the idea but it kept coming back, it wouldn’t leave me alone. Sometimes emotion won and then, always, the rats bit harder and logic held sway. Since the crash, my body had been surviving on its reserves but the tank was nearly empty. Every time I moved, even to go take a leak or fetch a water bottle, I used up some of the very little juice that remained. Without some kind of nutrition soon, some fuel intake, I was doomed. The corpse that used to be María was the only edible thing I had.
As my hunger became increasingly visceral, expediency became almost impossible to argue against. Then I began arguing to myself that I had a moral duty to stay alive too, by any means whatsoever, including this one. That’s what my María would have wanted, right?
It’s only meat. That’s all it is. María’s soul has gone to heaven to be with God.
So I told myself. There was no longer a human being here; all that was left was a carcass. I’ve eaten other carcasses all my life – why not this one?
I had to, it was my duty, she would have wanted it, and if I was to get off this mountain and survive I had to do it. In the thin air it already took me so much effort just to walk a hundred feet. I thought how much more it would take to climb to the top of the nearest mountain to the west and then down the other side. What lay in that mound was pure energy. The truth of it was uncontestable.
Eat it or die. María would have wanted me to do it for my sake. Would God hate me? If there was a God and he was watching then he surely understood, and he wanted me to live too. Virtue lay in survival and perhaps this was God’s way to provide . . .
So my mind and belly worked, continuing to justify what I so much wanted to do anyway. I still shrank from the decision. If only I had even a small hope of rescue, but in reality there was none.
My survival instinct was winning even though the thought of eating human meat was horrific, especially this particular flesh. It was a social taboo for good reason. I reminded myself that there was no society up here, there was only live or die.
The mental turmoil tired me out and I slept for the rest of the day, blessedly free of anguish, doubt and the never-ending gnawing of the hunger rats. When I awoke the sky was dim and I barely had time to gather up the bottles and foil and bring them inside. I glugged one bottle down thirstily and had to force myself to leave the other one aside for morning. The water filled my belly and satisfied the gnawers for a little while.
I lay down and listened to the silence of the mountains. The sleep had done me good and at last my head was clear. I knew I must act tomorrow or not at all. Any longer and I’d be too weak to do it even if I wanted. I took out my Swiss Army knife and ran my thumb along the largest blade. In the morning I would use it.