White Out

By the time I noticed the first snowflakes brushing the windshield we were more than halfway to our destination. Giving the sky a cursory glance, I cranked up the music and pushed my SUV a little faster knowing how quickly the weather could turn in this area.

I looked in my rearview mirror and caught a glimpse of my daughter's strawberry blonde curls bouncing in time to the music. I smiled to myself once again, grateful that my children liked real music instead of that kiddie tunes crap.

The slush yielded to snow pack and I crept my way up one side of the mountain, certain that the other side wouldn’t be nearly as bad. I passed the snowfall marker at the top of the mountain noticing that there was an additional three feet of snow present that had not been there the last time I had done this drive a mere two weeks ago. By the time my car reached the top of the pass, the sky was a frigid gray with streaks of purple slashed across it. Any daylight that had served as solace had been sucked into the swirling snow that stood before me.

Cresting the last small hill before starting my descent from the pass I realized that there were no marks in the snow before me. There was no sign of plow or tire tracks anywhere on the road. I was completely alone. The farther I went the deeper the snow got, until finally as I looked out at the valley beneath me all I could see was one solid swath of white. There was no delineation between road, rock and the sheer cliffs lining the road that would take me, and my daughter, to our certain deaths.

“Why you stop the car mama?”

I couldn’t talk. Not without scaring her. Not without the shock strangling my voice. I tried to breathe. To calm the terror clawing its way up my throat.

“Where my music go mama?”

The silence was worse than the distraction of the music. The silence was suffocating in its unquestionable finality.

The scenery laid out before me was stark and terrifyingly beautiful. The natural topography of the land had been filled in and made uniform by the relentlessly piling snow. It blunted any landmark to the point where I had little idea of where I was. I knew I couldn’t be far from a town but I had no idea how I would make it there.

“I love you Violet.”

“My love you too mama.”

The car started to inch forward once more as my foot slowly eased off the brake.