Writing By Headlight

It was so beautiful, she thought, as she watched the sunlight shift through the trees, teasing her with the promise of heat, its warm fingers just out of reach. She closed her eyes and smiled, imagining that she could actually feel the caress of its warmth on her cheeks.

The snow lay heavy on the rocks and the trees, blanketing everything in a pure white, much as her down comforter would have covered her had she been dreaming at home and not on the cold, wet ground.

The view from the edge of the cliff had been irresistible, unreal in it’s breathtaking beauty.  The sound of the ice breaking beneath her feet as alien to the serenity of the landscape as the sound of the crack her body made when she landed on the rocks lining the shore of the river below.

She wasn't sure what was broken, only that she hadn't been able to move since she hit the ground. All of the survival skills made useless by the broken shell of the body she had worked so hard to train.

She was not a stranger to the outdoors in the wintertime, having grown up on the plains of Wyoming. Winters there were harsh and unforgiving, and if you weren't prepared, the elements did not hesitate to take you as a victim and a as heartless warning to others.

She had been prepared. She had even brought an over sized trash sack to use as extra protection from moisture if anything happened to her poncho. She had a backup to all of her backups and she knew how to use them.

There should have been no reason for anyone to worry.

The wind finally stopped blowing, the ominous gray clouds scattering leaving the sky a steel blue, made darker and dangerously clear by the intensity of the cold. The lack of heavy clouds was a welcoming change of scenery, allowing her to hope for warmth even though she knew it was too late to feel it.

Soon the sun would set behind the cliff above her. Or would it rise? She couldn't remember.

As if in a trance, she watched a snowflake as it drifted and spun its way delicately from the sky and landed on the bright red of her glove. A glove that was now useless in its attempt to warm.

She could no longer feel the weight of the thin band of gold on her left ring finger. A weight that months later still made her heart flutter with the thought of her new husband.

She thought she had seen and heard him several times as the hours had passed.  Each time, she would struggle to speak to him, but the sound of her voice broke the spell and he would disappear along with another piece of her heart. 

"I'm sorry Josh. I'm so sorry." She whispered.

The violent shivering ceased, taking with it the deep endless cold. She lay still, as still and silent as the woods around her, and let the music of the nearby river lull her into surrender with its peaceful melody.

"Laura?" The distorted sound reached her ears almost as though the river was whispering her name. Then the whisper became louder, more insistent and mingled with the muffled crunch of boots on snow.

Into the blur of her vision and the confusion of her mind, she saw his face and remembering he would disappear if she spoke she simply smiled, the wind carrying her sigh away as gently as the cold coaxed her spirit from her body.
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Note: This post was originally written by me on my former blog To Twinfinity and Beyond, that I authored under the alias Sonora.  It was written from a prompt and linked up to the Red Dress Club, now known as Write on Edge.