This is a short story about someone being stuck in an avalanche that occurs in Jasper, British Columbia. It is the first short story I have written here.
Twilight was sinking into complete darkness when I crossed the border that separated the World Heritage Site from unprotected land. Jasper, British Columbia. I came here around a month ago after work on a whim, and fell into the routine of doing it almost every day. The stars were the only thing that penetrated the absolute blackness of the sky. I had once heard from someone that when you die, you ascend past the impenetrable black until all that surrounds you is the deafening white of the stars. Who I heard it from, I don`t know. Perhaps I even read it in a book.
Either way, I was surprised to see the stars so clear tonight. When it was still light, it was so cloudy that when I tipped my face towards the sun, I couldn't feel its warmth. I once heard that clear skies were the sign of an avalanche. Again, I have no idea who I heard it from. I am almost completely sure it`s not true.
Presently, I heard two people speaking in a language I did not understand. Speaking is a bit of an understatement; they were arguing. Very loudly. It was in Spanish, I think - I am half Chilean, so I often heard it being spoken around me when my fathers side of the family came over for celebrations. But my ancestry betrayed me; I had no idea what they were saying. Not the people I could hear arguing, and not my Chilean relatives when I was a child. I could hear the footsteps belonging to the people arguing begin to die down. Their voices had risen to a restrained shout, but even that was difficult to hear with the distance between us. Instead, it had been replaced with the hollowness of the icy ground beneath me. If the clear skies were not a reliable way to predict an avalanche, this certainly was.
I don`t know why I stayed. I think part of me wanted to witness the avalanche for myself, as despite living near Jasper for most of my life, I had never actually witnessed one. I was born in Detroit, and came to British Columbia to study classics. Some nondescript university I barely remember, due to the amount of time it has been since I stayed there, and its sheer mediocrity. The classics department I spent most of my time in was criminally underfunded and I am reasonably certain the building contained asbestos. Our teacher was clearly someone who had a passion for the classics, but was not paid enough to put that same enthusiasm into her teaching.
The ground began to shake. I was already trembling due to the cold, but now I could feel my heart begin to thump in panic. My mind however, was completely calm. Ever since high school, I have always felt like I was on the edge of a migraine. I lit candles and those old-fashioned kerosene lamps instead of the electricity-powered lights that pierced my brain and gave me a headache. I went to bed earlier than my body demanded, so I would have time to lie in complete darkness and silence, the state that my body was inclined towards. I constantly ricocheted between being so aware of my surroundings that my stomach was sick with adrenaline, or being so disconnected that it felt like my body was being controlled by someone else, and my fog-permeated brain was just an onlooker of whatever mundane thing I was doing at the time. At this particular moment, my brain was turned in on itself, ceasing control and letting my body do what it thought was best without any input. Every bone, muscle, tendon. Perhaps that is why I didn't move.
The Athenians believed that when you die, it simply felt like sinking into the embrace of an inevitable, all-curing sleep. Something I learned from my classics class. They were wrong. Were they supposed to know better? They would not know unless they were dead themselves. They are dead now though, which is perhaps why nobody thinks that anymore. Or maybe I am all wrong, I don`t know.
Funnily enough, the last thought that came to me was Patrick. Another fragment of my classics class. He had a delicate, boyish frame, dirty blonde hair and blue eyes magnified behind sliver pince-nez glasses. You might think from this description that he was very attractive, but his pale, yellowish complexion and sunken, icy eyes made him actually look quite unnerving.
In this particular memory, he was sitting cross-legged on the grass outside our university smoking a cigarette. His bony fingers were stained with ink and nicotine. I watched this memory play out in my head, of him discussing how far apart the Roman legions stood in battle (a foot or so apart he maintained, much to the disagreement of a girl in our class who argued that they actually stood shoulder to shoulder). It was not a particularly special memory, but it was genuine, human; perhaps these are the most special of all.
Presently, I remembered a story of Achilles, who upon seeing the ghost of his closest companion Patroklos, attempted to throw his arms around the latter, only to cut right through him. My own hands remained at my sides. Although this was perhaps to do with the fact I was watching a memory, as unchangeable and seemingly fictional as the projector-screen movies me and my friends used to watch about thirty years ago. As abruptly as the memory started, it cut to black. They say that hearing is your last sense to go, but as I lay there under the impossibly thick blanket of snow, I could hear nothing at all. Radio silence. I could still see my memories, each one crystal clear as they faded into the next. And then, as a cassette reel stops when it runs out of tape, my memories stopped. That was the very end.
Written by Casterelle