FICTION

A LONG WINTER'S NIGHT

Eileen - PA.

It was late in December, and I was driving along the deserted moun- tain road in upstate Vermont, paying little attention to the drifting snow. Just out of the service, I had been driving around the East Coast, spending my separation money and searching for something, perhaps a meaning in life. It was a wicked time to find myself in this part of the country, with 6 to 8 feet of snow covering the barren terrain. From the highway, I could only see whiteness through the dusk, no lights or signs of rest or civilization. Just like the snowstorm, I was lost in my own cloud and couldn't see anything ahead of me in life. I punched the engine viciously not caring, as I swept through curve after curve. Not caring, losing myself in speed I was drifting wider and wider, all of a sudden my rear wheels hit a patch of ice spun twice and shot off the road, a sheer cliff and into the whiteness . . .

I had a sense of drifting rather than falling as the ground wasn't even visible through the snowfall and the gathering dusk, I have no idea of how far I fell, but the concussion knocked me into a sea of blackness. I awoke much later, in the inky darkness of night, but with the false light of the moon on the snow. The car, front end smashed, lay buried in the snow bank that had saved my life, I rolled down the window and struggled out on the car roof. Looking around, freezing cold, I hadn't the vaguest idea where I might be. Down at this level, I was beneath the fog and the snowfall had stopped. I was able to fix a position on the landmarks in the unknown valley that I had fallen in. Far across the valley, huddled against the reverse slope of the mountain, I could make out the golden glitter of a small light. Half afraid of sinking into the un- known depth of the snow, I hesitated before setting out. It appeared to be a scant five hundred yards away, but I could be lost, drown or freeze, long before I ever covered the distance. I stepped out onto the plain of the snow and was surprised to find that the crust was solid enough to sustain my weight. I walked gingerly out for about two hundred yards,