When the avalanche came, the fuselage filled with snow, like a throat. There were 24 people inside, survivors of a plane crash high in the Andes, boys mostly, rugby players buoyant with youth. They had shy girlfriends and old cars they shined by hand. They hung cigarettes from their lips and blew smoke at the sun. At night, their mothers stole into their rooms to watch them sleep. Some weeks ago, they had begun to eat the flesh of their dead comrades.

And now this: a wave of snow erasing them. For a few moments, there was absolute silence. A few began to moan. It was easier when they stopped struggling. One boy said later he could see a crown of light bending towards him. Another said he felt, at the moment of surrender, a tranquility so profound it would haunt him the rest of his life. A third—the one who came closest to dying—saw a hundred images from his childhood. He inspected them with great patience, like photographs, falling backward in time until he was just a baby on a white rug and his mother was walking towards him.

The boys were devout Catholics. They had been raised to gaze upon their Redeemer as a man nailed to wood, His arms flung out for a bloody hug. Now they knew the truth. It was better than any vision. This is why, when they felt hands clutching at them, they fought to remain still. They were as spirits roused from the tomb of paradise. They smelled the stinking pleas of their bodies. Life hovered over them, a bully with the wild eyes of saints, pounding at their hearts, saving them.