High Glacier (blogophilia 14.8)

Where are the places silence goes?
Places to escape the shock of real
Looking to be healed.


The stalled car spoke to him while he trailed an elk, as it did to any who passing by. Its existence here was a profanity to all the wilderness stood for. A poster child to the world of greed and cruelty.  The same one that used him, spitting the empty husk like a dormant seed. And the wilderness accepted him as one of its own, allowing regrowth before his returning to dust.

The buck jumped twenty feet into a shifting snow shelf. He sighed and realized no meat today. No way to follow without a collapse.The sun was getting dangerously close to the opposite ridge. Night will be coming soon. Looking back to the metal ghost. It would make good cover for the night and maybe there will be some supplies. As was his habit, he looked both up and down the ridge for tracks. There were none and he approached.

The gray silhouette contrasted with the back lit snow. White eyebrows adorned edges of glass. Icicles colored with gray dust meandered toward the frozen floor. Setting his rifle on the trunk of the car, he walked to the passenger side. The door handle lifted on the second try, small slivers of glass raining down. As he opened it, he saw the needle sticking out of a blue stripped arm. A fellow traveler had made the final leap, disappearing into the ether. A testament to a short, hard life.

She had been one of the used, who perform with little or no recompense. Lain across the bench seat like a doll, a thin scarlet robe was tucked under her, lightly covering pale scarred legs.Had she come voluntarily? The dessicated remains didn't give those details. Just a body transported by time. Tears formed at the corners of the craggy eyes. Someone's daughter lost is s a void  never filled. But to advise her location would wake dormant warrants and wake his own past.

The wind began to pick up. Ice pellets stung his face and drummed across the buckskin jacket. Carefully, he pulled the seat forward and crawled to shelter. Taking a small blanket from his pack, he gently covered the exposed flesh. He brushed the thin hair aside and kissed the cold forehead. As he settled into sleep he prayed: "Sleep tight, little one. May your next stop be better than this one." 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I suppose each of us has his own fantasy of how he wants to die. I would like to go out in a blaze of glory, myself, or maybe simply disappear someday, far out in the heart of the wilderness I love, all by myself, alone with the Universe and whatever God may happen to be looking on. Disappear - and never return. That's my fantasy.” 


 Topic-Kim Herndon

Pic-Colleen Bruening

Pic Guesses: Scarlet (In blog), Final Leap (in blog) Lands end, Sound of Silence, Sunset, Grief, In the end.