Magic
By James Beltz

          Snowflake paratroopers jumped from the sky as I ascended the ski hill. My fingers were cold and my breath took the form of cigarette smoke. The old cable connected to my chairlift made a twanging noise like a low note from a banjo as the cold air strummed it. My eyes were fixed on the flakes that landed all over me, watching as they lay on my legs and then melted away like footprints on a beach. My legs seemed to stretch longer as the weight of my boots pulled at them. Finally, the familiar feeling of snow underneath my feet was back and I was off.

I followed the groomed run, but as the white walls around me grew I could see the piles of cold smoke accumulating in the forest around me. Images of myself skiing the fresh powder danced through my mind, and without realizing I had fallen into a trance. Suddenly, my weight shifted, and the edges of my skis sliced through the snow with a crisp slice, carrying me towards the trees. The white walls changed into taller wooden ones, and soon the familiar powder was blocked by Mother Nature’s fortifications. Soft puffing noises contrasted with sharp cracks as weak branches snapped off of trees, and ice chipped at my skis. The only sounds were the calm songs of my sliding on the snow, and the cold creaking of the old timber. The serenity of the forest lured my captivated mind and body in, and soon the flat gradient changed into a slowly steepening slope. Even as the wind that blew on my face grew stronger, and the snow higher, the tranquility of the forest remained unchanged.

My mind was away as I entered white room after white room, but the unmistakable popping noise snow makes just before it releases as an avalanche shattered my unconscious meditation. Immediately my senses were jolted awake along with the hairs on my back that rose like needles. Before the echoes of the noise had even disappeared I felt the ground beneath my skis shift, and the peacefulness of the forest was lost and replaced by discord. As the white beast let loose, I plummeted into its consuming jaws. The beautiful snow, which had lured me from the trail and into the forest, was now more cold and heavy than ever as its power carried me down the steep pitch. Something that had once been so enticing to my senses now alerted those same senses of death’s imminence. The sounds stacked on top of each other as the avalanche splintered small saplings, but moments after it had begun it was over.

Disoriented, cold, and scared I shifted helplessly in the snow, my prison. Finally, I freed myself from the cold, hard hands of Mother Nature, beginning with my right hand, then my left hand, then my torso, and soon after, my feet. My hands checked over my body and my mind did the same; everything was okay. But as I skied away from the spell of the forest and back to my locker, my hands continued to shake, and not because they were cold. What once appeared as magic, now felt like something darker, something that had almost taken my life. The sensual beauty of the storm had tempted me and in an effort to satisfy the mysterious cravings, and I had almost been caught.