Hope and Despair on Great Bear

Lost

A flare burning in the darkness.

The blinding fury of a blizzard.

She leaned into the wind, her coat flapping wildly.

She was lost.

Snow filled her boots as she limped along.

A tear frozen on her cheek.

Disoriented, the flare blazing red in her outstretched hand. Earlier that day, she could feel the starvation, the gaping emptiness in her stomach. It burned. So she shambled along the ridge by the cabin to check the snares. Nothing. Then the storm came . Darkness reached across the sky and the moon emerged. Her ankle twisted when she fell down the slope, tumbling uncontrollably. Now she hauled it along behind her, crooked and broken, like it wasn't her own.

Around her neck, a crucifix clung to her pale skin. She looked up and pleaded for help. But there was only darkness. She shouted louder, so the lord could hear, but there was only wind.

She felt along the edge of a cliff, a narrow path that hugged the face. Partially sheltered from the wind, she was still off balance, waving her arms frantically as she teetered along. Behind her, a drop into the darkness. One hundred foot, maybe a thousand, who knows. She kicked a stone off the path and listened for the clatter, but it never came. Only the sound of the frantic blizzard.

She came to a rope bride and held her flare up to see. It danced perilously, suspended in the darkness , it's wooden planks creaking and clattering together. She could've gone back the way she came, she could've waited for the storm to pass. But the deafening wind and hail had her mind in a frenzy. Decisions were out of her control.

She planted her foot on the bridge and grabbed the ropes at either side. The flare burned out and she let it drop into the abyss. Slowly, she pulled herself along. The wind was relentless, bellowing across the bridge, straining the ropes and bolts to the point of submission.  The darkness was blinding and the snow battered against the side of her face. A plank beneath her feet snapped under her weight and she grasped the ropes tighter, her heart racing.  At that  moment, her body didn't allow her to proceed. The fear overtook her. Possessed her. So she stood, on the bridge, clasping the ropes. Burning and freezing in the storm. Lost.