Dancing into the Fire
A Flash Fiction by Cole Beauchamp
Blizzards are all too familiar on the mountain: belting gusts that knuckle in, scraping skin, clumping ice on his eyelashes. He never leaves the cabin without his backpack, never varies his daily patrol of the mountain, whatever the weather. Today it’s a whiteout, biting wind twinging his toes like the pluck of a banjo string.
He keeps walking, sinking, walking, sinking as the storm rages. The pain in his limbs is proof his body is still fighting. It’s the last flush of heat he has to worry about, that’s what living decades on this tempestuous mountain has taught him. They were so naïve at eighteen, him and Elsie. He swept her out of her family's comfortable shop to stake their claim, raise their bairn. But now the mountain is dying. The bees disappeared with the decline of goldenrod and coneflowers. Winters became harsher, summers hotter. And now the whole damn world is dying, why leave the only place that brings him joy?
High footing these snowdrifts has made his hips gripe. He’s winding back home from his patrol when the icy crust collapses under his weight. Down he goes. Less wind at ground level. Throbbing ankle, dancing snowflakes. They twirl like he and Elsie used to at the barn dances. Is that her skirt, flapping at him in the distance?
He recognises disaster when it comes to shake his hand. The rockslide that killed two horses. Disease that ravaged the goats. Tyler drowning in the river. He’d borne it all, all those years on Mountain Rescue before the funding was cut, seen all the ways a person could die: dehydration, exposure, sunstroke, forest fire, hypothermia. He reaches for his backpack, fingers clumsy as he wraps the support tape around and around his ankle. He takes his time, chews on venison strips and sips water, summoning his reserves. Is that Elsie’s voice ringing in his ears, “It’s walk or die time. Git moving old man.”
His brain is geared for survival. It’s abandoned his limbs to protect his heart and lungs. Dizziness nearly upends him, balancing as he is on numb feet. Still he steps, searing pain in his ankle. Pain is good. Like an engine, he’ll run cleaner with a little acceleration, a little heat. He pictures the trail he’s left behind: a smooth circle from his fall, churned-up snow where he rose, footprints deeper on one side. Finding shelter is more urgent now it’s getting dark. Home not much further. He’s on the last mile, right? Walking. Sinking. He has the tarp in the pack if he needs it. Did he pack it? Maybe he should drink more, eat more? Will it be worse if he stops? Questions foul his mind. But there’s Elsie, her smile bright, waving come on, like when the kids were jumping rocks across the summer melt.
He’s not given to a young man's illusions. When he falls the second time, he closes his eyes and lies still. No more wind. No more shivering. The snow is a soft comfort, a cocoon. He feels a surge of heat, a pilot light about to ignite. And whoosh, he burns into life, limbs hot as blood returns. Music strums through him, the tapping foot of the banjo player like his glorious heart. He sees that familiar turn of Elsie's skirt as she looks at him over her shoulder, her warm eyes saying she’s been waiting all this time, just for him.
Author: Cole Beauchamp (she/her) is a queer writer based in London. Her stories have been in the Wigleaf Top 50, nominated for awards and shortlisted for the Bath, Bridport, Oxford and WestWord prizes for flash fiction. She lives with her girlfriend and has two children. Find her on bluesky @nomad-sw18.bsky.social
This is great! I love the twirl of Elsie’s skirt and the dancing snow. Such a clever blend of memory and sensory detail. A great read.
Beautiful: icy and warm all at once. Your descriptions are vivid , have you been somewhere like this Cole? You really brought me there.