By Omega Woolery
Icy wind combed through my hair, cutting my exposed skin like a razor. The beast roared beneath my thighs, the machine’s force reverberating my rib cage as it churned out a wave of snow in my wake. Inside my helmet, my heart pumped like a speaker. Cold air drove down my throat to bite into my lungs. I let the throttle feed the adrenaline racing in my blood, kicking out the back-end of the snowmobile to glide around a tree that was blanketed in all white like a bride. The world was pure, virgin snow on this section of off-piste slope. The spiked treads of my vehicle spun relentlessly, digging deep into the soft, fresh surface.
Flying off a mound of snow full-bore, I was weightless for a moment, then my gloved hands jarred against the handlebars as the suspension under my seat bounced with the impact of my landing. I had to swerve to stay on course. Dangerously loose snow skittered underneath my vehicle’s treads and the telltale sign made me throw a look over my shoulder in panic. My world began to rumble. The snow further up was boiling, sliding down the slope in a fog of relentless power. My eyes were frozen by the force of nature.
The mountain face careened toward me; I watched as though it was a video, the white sheet falling like a veil. I was paralyzed, unable to consider an escape before it drowned me, ripping my motor-sledge from my hands and rolling me in a freezing drift until my body thunked into an ice-coffin.
Snow encased my torso and legs. I had room only for the movement of my head, and I was thankful for the small pocket of air in the frozen grave. Trying my best to recall the steps of avalanche protocol I slowed my breathing, desperately grappling with my growing panic as I scratched at the wall of ice before me in vain; the snow was packed harder than cement.
Hour-long seconds ticked on and on, each one turning the snow cave into a tomb. Unable to lift my hand to check my watch, I was frozen in limbo. The world above my small snow cave was undisturbed, and a deathly chill had leached all the warmth from my blood long ago. I lay in an ice-cold bed, and not for the first time. The thought rattled in my brain, bringing me back there, and I almost heard her voice under the snow.
“How could you tell me you love me?” She had screamed it at me, tears winding their way down the grooves in her weathered skin. Our broken home had still stood, its walls encasing me in her resentment. “Our lives are so intertwined, David… I just need your cooperation on this… No, of course, I will never be able to just forget you… And that’s why I don’t understand! How could you do this to me?”
I had held the door shut as she tried to leave. I tried to recall my response, but every broken piece I remembered came back an angry blur.
“David! Believe me, I do want the divorce… Yes, I am sure… I would never, not unless I was anything but certain… David, I am not just angry… Please David, for me… Just sign the papers…” She tried to leave me. My arm had bolted over her shoulder, slamming the door to our home shut with my palm before she turned on me. Her face was a mask of shock, her back pushed up against the closed door. I had refused to let her go, locked the doors, trapped her in.
The snow in the cave packed tightly against my chest, locking me in place. “No!” I remembered screaming it into her face. “I already told you Sarah, stop… You aren’t leaving… I won’t let what we have crumble… Sarah, stop…” Even now, the papers still lay on my mahogany desk over a thousand miles away, unsigned, and she remained trapped. My cage of ice was no different than the confines in which I held her; covered with hoarfrost in my gelid prison, I knew that I had to release her. I had sought to remove her choice, a grave mistake that had driven her further from the warmth of the bed where we used to lay. The weight of all the cold above my head could never crush me like the guilt that weighed on my heart. I prayed now to be free, but I was stuck fast in the frigid embrace, tendrils of frostbite wrapping my limbs.
She had shunned me after that night, packing when I finally allowed her to go, refusing my pleas for mercy. How had I told her I loved her, when I knew she would hate me for what I’d done? My heart barely beat, sluggish and weak from the creeping cold, as I remembered the woman I had lost. My chattering teeth clacked so violently I could barely say my prayer. Just let me tell her that I’m sorry.
As my breathing all but expired, a single sunbeam perforated my darkness. A freezing gust raked across my cheeks as the roof of ice over my head crumbled. A face loomed over me, centered in front of a widening hole that led to the sky. Precious light bloomed behind my savior’s head like a halo. For a moment, I saw Sarah, her big eyes shining back the glare from the snow. But then the large, reflective goggles came off and the man reached a hand down to help relieve my burden.
I flew home light as a feather. The crisp morning sun warmed the hand that held the pen. It was the same hand that hadn’t always touched her softly, the same hand that always cleaned away her blood. Tears wound their way down the grooves in my weathered skin and dripped onto the mahogany as I signed the papers.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Great action as he struggles with decisions! Very powerful!
Thought-provoking.