Snowbound

A man sat alone in the cabin, staring out of what used to be a window. Immense snow drifts blocked most of the view, but through a high, narrow slit he could see the snow falling gently in the crisp, morning air. Tall, but not broad, the man was muscled like an animal; a true hunter. His eye twitched involuntarily, and with a he arose from the wooden chair.

He was hungry. It had been days since he had last fed. Stepping over the roughly hewn wooden floor, he ignored the crunch of tiny bones beneath his feet and headed towards the front door, stuck fast in ice. The door was useless, but the man still kept his shotgun there out of habit. He picked up the heavy piece, wiped away some dripping mucus from his nose, and picked out a number of shells from the drawer. After cramming them into his coat’s deep pockets, he turned, and headed towards the small bedroom.

The bedroom was full of furniture stacked into a rough slope that led to a crude opening hacked just below an eave. The hunter set his foot upon the erstwhile kitchen table and began to scale the precarious structure. He wriggled through the hole and fell heavily upon the packed snow.

He sat up and exhaled heavily, watching as his breath froze in the cold air. He giggled. It almost looked like cigarette smoke. He had only a single pack with him when he came here. Though long gone, the craving remained.

He turned his blue eyes upwards. A solitary tear came to his eyes as he remembered that She had loved looking at his eyes. Like granite: hard, unyielding, and flecked with lightning. A solitary tear came to his eyes as he remembered that She had loved looking at his eyes. Ferocious, she had said, like a lone wolf’s. He snorted in bitter amusement. Now he really was a lone wolf, exiled from society, alone, cold, and hungry. Those halcyon days were long gone.

The hunter was thankful the weather was calm. Last night the winds had raged through the cabin. Now, snow drifted peacefully downwards, and branches had begun to regrow their icicles.

“The calm before the storm?” he mused with a snicker.

The snow was deeper here, and the trees looked strange from the hunter’s perspective. The lowest branches were now below his feet, as though he were ten feet tall. He cackled loudly at this absurdity when there was a sudden movement to the man’s left. A hare. He laughed harder now, amused by the hare’s feeble attempts to outrun him.

“Little rabbit, don’t run! Don’t you know that I’m the master of the woods? I am God here! No man, and certainly no rabbit can escape me. Enjoy your last moments, little one.”

The man watched as the rabbit escaped, tracing it back to its lair with his beautiful blue eyes. He laughed again. The rabbit had burrowed near one of the pines, and made its home among the branches.

“You think you’re a bird, do you? No wonder you thought you could escape. I have news for you, buddy. Rabbit-birds don’t belong in this world. You’ll have to go.”

Stepping forward, the man looked down into one of his coat’s pockets. He found a few matches and a ball of animal hair soaked in fat that he normally used as tinder. It would be a shame to waste it, but the rabbit-bird’s very existence was a threat to all order in the universe.

The man struck a match and watched as the fibers curled and smoked as the flame licked the sides of the tinder. It quickly grew hot, and the man crouched and rolled it into the hole. Sure enough, the rabbit came darting out of another hole only a few yards away. The man rose, lifted the shotgun to his shoulder, and sighted down the barrel at his fleeing quarry. He followed the rabbit, then aimed a little ways ahead of it and depressed the trigger.

The shotgun kicked, and the hunter looked around. It wasn’t unheard of for the hare’s mate to be nearby, scared out of hiding by the report of the gun No such luck. John brought the rifle down and replaced the used cartridge.

He went to the hare, and picked it up by the ears. It was scrawny, slowly starving in the cold winter. “Just like me. You don’t belong here, Mr. Rabbit-Bird. You don’t belong anywhere.” His smile suddenly vanished into a look of confusion and frustration. Turning, he began the long trudge back, swinging the rabbit in one hand.
Ahead was the cabin, its roof looking lonely as it poked through the snow. Nearby was the lean-to he had made above the snow to house his firewood. Inside that was a bench and table, where he planned to butcher the rabbit. He removed his hunting knife and skinned it, grabbed a few logs, and climbed through the hole back into his home.

He squatted at the fireplace. He removed a few more of the improvised tinder balls, and set them on the dry firewood. After admiring the flame of his newly struck match for a moment, the man dropped it onto the pile. The fire was fascinating. The wood fibers sizzled and smoldered, turning to charcoal as they were consumed. The entrancing blue smoke swirled, curling up to the ceiling. The fire grew.
One of the logs shifted, and rolled onto the floor. After a pause, the man’s eyes flicked over to the logs. It still burned, and now lay on wood. He stood, intending to shift it back, but reconsidered. Instead he squatted, fanning the flames. The fire’s flickering cast dancing shadows across the hunter’s face, making him seem demented. The floor caught fire, and the man let out a keening cry of elation.

The fire would melt the damned snow! The blaze would end this melancholy, destroy the oppressively pure veil of winter. He blew on the fire and danced for joy. He hauled out some of the furniture and fed the growing pyre until the roar drowned out his cries of joy. No longer would he live in this accursed ice and unholy bleakness, no longer endure the bone-biting cold or the frigid nights. He would be free.
The overwhelming heat was now in his nostrils, boiling his flesh and searing his skin. It was magnificent, an inferno. He could see the snow melting. The roof shifted. Timber crashed down, spewing in steam. Cigarette smoke again. He laughed, but it came out as a rasp through his smoke filled lungs. The craving was still there.

The timbers in the roof shifted and fell. The man was pinned, blood dripping and sizzling around a wound on his forehead. Cremated along with his rabbit and his beautiful eyes, all traces of his immolation were soon erased by the falling snow.