Exploring the Snow

Prompt: Today you are an explorer. What do you explore? Where do you go to do this exploring? What are the consequences?

Word Count: 366

Snow is dangerous. It falls from the sky and merges into fields that cover vast expanses of the lands. It covers the crest of high mountains in every season of the year.

In winter is grows into packs that suddenly descend in avalanches, which flow down a mountain like water over Victoria Falls. The snow covers everything in its path, buries houses, animals and people beneath feet of hard packed snow.

In spring, snowmelt flows down dry streambeds pushing debris ahead of it. The water flooding the lowlands carries trash and trees, dangers to anyone daring to cross its path.

Anyone living in the mountains knows the danger snow presents. They know that falling snow can deceive the sight and hide death in pleasant looking drifts. It is a mystery why Nat and Pandora left the house on the day the hundred-year snowstorm began. The only clue found was the note they left on the kitchen table, which read: “Gone out to explore the snow, be back in an hour or two. Love Nat & Pandora”

Pandora’s sister Alicia found the note found two weeks later, when the snow had melted enough for the citizen of Mountain Lake to leave their homes. She thought Nat and Pandora might be low on food, so she put a sack of flour, tins of dried fruit and meat into her buggy. Alicia’s husband, Joe, hitched up the horse Nellie and they took the food to Pandora’s house.

Joe left Alicia at Pandora’s house and rode Nellie back into town. With the aid of the Mayor, Joe organized a search party. They didn’t expect to find Nat and Pandora alive, they just wanted to find the bodies in order to give the couple a decent burial. After all, everyone knows that the souls of the unburied roam aimlessly never finding rest until someone places their bones in hallowed ground.

The search party had to find the bodies. It was a matter of survival for Mountain Lake and its citizens because ghosts roaming a town’s streets drive off desirable tourists and attract undesirable visitors. Whether or not the search party found the bodies is unknown, because the search party never returned.