Avalanche

By Stacy Trautwein Burns

No warning on the mountain. Sky so blue, it hurt. We stopped to breathe and Mattie lit a cigarette. First came sound: a kind of rushing.

We fell like we’d fall forever, like the end of the world, hell opened, wind burning; it was just me and Mattie and the rushing sound; I remembered her hands that day we saved the whale.

Legs splintered. Silent. Maybe there was a bird. As I tell it, I remember there being a bird—far away. I reached for Mattie, her hands. Then came screaming: a kind of crying.

     
Stacy Trautwein Burns’ work can also be found at Jellyfish Review, Smokelong Quarterly, and New Flash Fiction.