Winters Last Snow Fall

“Here’s the keys man” James dangled the medley of metallic keys in front of Matt’s face. Matt plucked them from the air “Thanks man, this really means a lot to me.” “Don’t even mention it! You fucking deserve this, it’s been a rough few months, but you’ll get through this.” But James’s words where lost on Matt. He took the keys and hopped into his truck. James and his wife stood in the rear view mirror waving; their forced pity smiles did not have their intended effect. They just upset Matt. Matt surfed through the white noise till the tuner hit a clear line of vocals. Music was no consolation to matt; it was more of a sad reminder of the life he was trying to escape. “Nothing like some country music to kick a man while he is down” Matt muttered, as he surfed through the white noise some more for a more appropriate station. Matt’s mind wandered back in time, recalling all the shit that took place to put him here in his current state, behind the wheel of his soon to be repossessed truck, alone. Driving to cabin he didn’t own in an attempt to escape the collapsing house of cards that was his life in the present. “No job, pending divorce, and a dead dog, my life is a fucking country song!” Matt gripped to the radio. He still had about three hours of drive time before reality would be left in the rear view mirror.
The hum of the engine had lulled matt into the threshold of slumber. It took Matt’s senses a while to pick up the luminescent eyes caught in the head lights, Matt slammed on his brakes, jolting the wheel to one side just in time to skid past the potential road kill victim. Matt squeezed the wheel and took a deep breath, paralyzed as he came down from his adrenaline high. The deer’s tendency to remain motionless as a thousand pounds of steel came hurdling toward it had at one time seemed a foreign reaction to Matt. But in recent months Matt had come to understand the deer’s stillness all too well. With his veins cleared of adrenaline, and his shakiness under control Matt resumed his journey into the mountains. As Matts truck climbed in elevation snow began to appear. The mounds increasing in size as he climbed. Matt maxed out the heater; his body was not apt to handling cold weather. The truck eased along the snow packed roads into town, coming to a stop at a circle K in the heart of the small town of pine top. Matt exited the vehicle, his boots splashing in the slush. The door chimed with his entrance, and Matt wasted no time making his way to the liquors section. Matt extracted the cheapest plastic bottle of vodka he could find, using his last bills to pay for his liquid escape from reality.
Before long Matt was back on the road, snaking his way through the frozen back roads toward James’s cabin. The small cabin broke through the tree line into view. Its snow covered greed tin roof capped the wood log façade. A small porch hung from the front of the house. Sheltered by the overhand of the roof. Matt through his truck into park and made his way up the porch stairs, vodka in hand. He entered the two bedroom cabin just long enough to get a cup from the kitchen to poor himself a drink. Matt made his way back out onto the porch, where his ass meet a small weathered rocking chair that had seen better days. The first sip of vodka found its way through Matt’s lips, burning its way down his esophagus giving him the illusion of a warming sensation. Matt produced a small pocket knife and a chunk of wood from his pocket. He began to plunge the knife into the chunk of wood, and the shavings collected in a pile at Matt’s feet. After a few minutes the carving lost Matts interest and he peered out onto the snow covered yard; his mind began directing his memories to play out like ghosts before him. The childhood versions of him and James played baseball in the yard, and erected snow forts with which to do battle. The carefree moments of childhood where all matt had left of happiness, the rest had been drained from his soul with each year of adult hood. Matt’s second glass quickly found its way to the bottom of his stomach.
The childhood memories where gone now, and the devil and god where raging inside Matts head. Only one would retain victory over his soul. With each sip of liquid warmth Matts thoughts grew colder and darker. The alcohol accelerated Matt’s mental instability. With each sip Matt’s helplessness grew. His mind was waging war upon itself. Violent self-torture, unable to cope with his own existence. Matt had managed to gulp down over half of the bottle. Sleep was Matt’s only escape from the mental venom he created. His lids fell slowly, concealing his bloodshot eyes. Matt slipped into the unconscious, narrowly avoiding the torture of self-destruction.
Nothing broke the snowy silence. No animal stirred, no tree rustled but matt jolted back into reality. The transition was harsh; there was a shrill pounding in the foreground of his head. His body trembled with the night time frost that still clung to his exterior. Matt stumbled to his feet. Knocking the empty bottle of vodka across the porch and into the snow. Oddly Matt didn’t remember finishing the bottle in its entirety, but with nights like that you hardly do Matt thought. Matt’s eyes blurrily surveyed the yard again. The memory ghosts where gone now, but something remained. A small patch of snow in the yard was disturbed and discolored. Matt cleared his vision with the backs of his hands and journeyed out into the morning snow. Matt knelt down examining a small splotch of brownish red discoloration in the snow. Matt dipped his finger in the frosty liquid, he knew instantly that the mysterious substance was blood. Matt looked up to notice several more splotches in the snow, leading off into the brush line. Some small animal must have been injured. The blood was fairly recent, still slightly warm to the touch, so Matt followed the trail. Pushing aside the brush Matt noticed the small trickles of blood had become larger, quarter fulls, then handfuls. The amount of bloody discharge in the snow began to alarm Matt. This animal was much larger than he first anticipated.
Matt pushed his way into another clearing, revealing even more blood. His heart began to race anticipating that he was going to come upon a large wounded animal. Matt almost felt bad for the creature he was yet to see. Probably wounded by a hunter, or some careless creation of man. The animal was most likely helpless; destine to bleed out in the chilly morning air. Matt was so lost in compassion he almost didn’t notice the creature, nearly stumbling over top of it. This was no deer or elk, Matt had stumbled across a body! Matt back pedaled away from the bloody scene, falling onto his back. He was hyper- venaliting, trying to process what he was witnessing. The body lay face down in a pool of bloody snow. After the initial shock began to fade Matt began to take notice of an odd occurrence. There was only one set of tracks leading to the body. How could anyone stumble off into the snowfall without leaving tracks? The only tracks left in the snow where his own. As perplexing as this question was to matt several other details struck him. The man lying in the snow had eerily similar clothing on to his own. Virtually the same jacket, with the same snow hat with the same snow shoes that Matt was wearing. Matt mind was racing; he had to see the face of the corpse. Maybe it held the last piece to the puzzle. Matt grabbed the man by the back of the jacket and attempted to roll him over, but nothing happened. Matts hands where useless. He tried to warm them to get their feeling back when he realized something. He didn’t feel cold, Matt didn’t feel anything! He had laid out in the cold all night yet matt couldn’t even feel cold. Where his nerve ending that far damaged? He thought, maybe he was still drunk from the night, it was only hours ago. Matt pondered his situation, trying to reason with himself.
A rustle in the bushes behind Matt produced a uniformed man, it was an officer of the law. “I just found him like this! I swear, I have no idea how he got here” Matt exclaimed in an obvious panic. But the officer paid no attention to his pleas. The officer knelt down and turned the facedown man over onto his back. The reality of Matts situation began to set in, he was staring back into his own lifeless face. A flood of emotion hit Matt like a freight train. He couldn’t feel the worldly effects of the environment, but he could certainly feel the emotional confusion. The officer went about his duties, paying no attention to Matts sobs. He radioed dispatch, within minutes an entire crew emerged documenting the evidence and cleaning up the mess. Matts being was an unnoticed bystander. Only a witness to reality, rather than being a part of it. The investigators ruled it a suicide, and Matts bloody pocket knife was bagged up for evidence. Soon the gathering left matt alone, staring at a disturbed patch of snow where his body once existed. Matt searched for tears that he could not express. Matt could still feel the emotional pain, but could no longer express it. He was no longer a prisoner to his sad reality, now he was nothing more than a witness to the prison itself. Matts being remained to witness winters last snow fall. Able to see the falling flakes of snow, but unable to experience the sensation of them on his skin.