The Final Escape - 556 words

The Final Escape

I walk along the path. The forecast said ‘gray skies and cold’. They got that right. -5 degrees and cloudy to the west. Since I have a warm coat, warm hat and warm mittens and my boots are rated to -25, I think I’ll be alright.

Like a steam engine I huff and puff up the trail, determined to reach the top by noon. Great clouds of steam make their way from under my hood. I tap the watch, noon it is. A great vista at the mountain top is before me. I smile. And then it starts. Gray skies lead to white snow. Great clouds of snow. My great clouds of steam from overheating meld into the great clouds of snow. I am now in a blizzard at the top of a mountain. Winter weather at its best.

Taking stock of the situation, seems I have no water, no food, no shelter, and no way of making it down the mountain in a blizzard. What to do. I have nowhere to be until dark, when I am expected to be home. I hope my cryptic note is understood by my family.

Stumbling in the blizzard I find a cave. Well, not so much a cave as an outcropping of rock. I rest and watch the snow fall. Deeper and deeper it grows in front of my feet. Gray skies become black. I tap the watch again. Now it is 4 PM. Darkness arrives soon in winter.

I slip deeper into the rock outcropping and sit on a boulder. Now even my warm coat, warm hat and warm mittens are letting me down and even the boots are letting in the cold. They say you don’t feel any pain when you freeze to death. I ponder that thought for a time.

When I wake, a small bottle is on my lap. I squint to read the label. ‘The Final Escape’. I check but no one is around. No footprints. Snow covers the face of the stone outcropping.

‘Take two pills and wait for help.’ I take two pills. They seem to dissolve, no water needed. Then I wait for help, just as the label says. But what is help? Is it death? Or is it an angel on horseback? Is it a helicopter? Or my favorite fantasy, a pterodactyl? And how long do I have to wait?

But now there are other worries. Who left the bottle? Why did I take the pills without thinking? How old is this bottle? I hope the escape is death from the pills. I shiver so hard I am now on the sandy ground. Perhaps I should take two more if the bottle is old and what if the pills have lost their potency and who left the pills and I need help now are the last thoughts before I fall asleep.

My eyes open to a blinding white. I am still in a blizzard, but now feel very warm. I must surely be in heaven now. Yes, that is it! I can see angels hovering nearby. So the help was an angel on horseback after all.

Once I wake the second time I see my angel. George saw my note. He knew where I would be. I asked George and he denied the pills. An angel on horseback indeed.