avalanche

I was buried beneath an avalanche on a hiking trip, covered from the chest down in dense, packed snow. All around me was an unending whiteness. The cold was unstoppable, pushing me from the outside in. It intended to devour the person that was Megan, and leave behind nothing but cold. I flailed my arms wildly, screamed, tried to wiggle my upper body, and flailed my arms and screamed and screamed and screamed.

Sometimes other hiker companion in thick coats would emerge on the horizon, walk by and ask me if I was ok, if I wanted to buy boots, if I was really fine, if I had this week's essay about mountain flora completed. Then they left. The worst part was that they would always come again and again and speak the same words.

I decided that I would bleed onto the snow as the most pathetic attempt to blow up the world in revenge. Maybe they would see what was actually happening, maybe they would see me for who I really am. Then another hiker came, and I felt too embarassed. I stuffed all of the red snow inside of my coat or swallowed them down my throat.

It wasn't easy but I even grew to like the snow and the cold. Maybe the cold talked to my body and convinced the body that the cold was good. I bled more onto the snow to fully embrace the cold. But I felt ashamed, slapped myself in the face, and convinced myself this isn't normal. I wiggled and flailed again, but I still couldn't get out.

Then someone threw a loop around my upper body and pulled me out. The rope strained across my coat on my chest, and it was painful. Even more painful than the cold and the isolation. The dense snow now appeared to be a comfortable refuge where I could spent the rest of my life in. So I resisted, I yelled at that someone to leave me alone, I said that I don't want to go back into a world that wouldn't give a damn to someone buried in the fucking snow. I even tried to cut the rope. Fortunately I was out before I severed it.

"Why did you pull me out of the snow? Who are you to judge who should stay in the snow and who shouldn't? Who are you to infringe on my right as an individual?"

"You were just stuck inside a kids's sandpit."

Then, I realized there were no hiking trip, no snow, and no cold. I was really just stuck in a kid's sandpit, out of all places to be stuck in. The man was then heading toward the largest sandpit in the world where countless others were also stuck. I wiped the sand of my cloths, stood up and followed.