OLIVER'S FALL

Oliver woke with a start, sweat beading down his forehead. Deep in the mountains of Northern Appalachia, winter had set in early with its bitter winds and constant snowfall. The late October sky full of stars to mock his wish for safety. He shivered as the sweat on his brow began to freeze; his fever was setting in. He shifted his body and hissed from the pain that shot up his shin so abruptly that he felt it in his teeth. He looked down at his leg, blood seeping through his shoddy bandage job. As he pulled back the bandage the smell of it crossed his nostrils, foul, putrid, infected. His left tibia had shattered in the fall, compounded and was protruding with a talon-like visage. He was also reasonably certain that several ribs had broken as well as his collarbone. Since the fall had occurred, he had been stationary for several days, and he couldn’t be sure how long he had lay there but time was running short, and he knew it. He knew he shouldn’t have gone climbing out here at the Marshfield Ledge alone, damn his stubbornness.

He tried wrapping himself tighter in his parka, desperate for warmth, with no real success. The temperatures in Vermont plummet at night, subzero at best, and so he lay there helpless, alone, nearly frozen, numb, and waiting to die. No one was coming for him, he knew that. His thoughts shifted to all the things that he would miss, his dog, Kimber, crossed his mind first. Such a goof, with his long snout, stubby legs, and floppy ears. “A magnificent specimen of the basset breed,” his veterinarian had said. He missed his warmth, or any warmth for that matter. Then he thought of his father, the man that raised him. He taught him to be fearless in anything he decided to undertake, and to never falter from his morality. He had instilled so many things in him. His stubbornness though, had apparently been in abundance since he could walk. He had decided to add it to that list of things to do recklessly and fearlessly.

Clearly that had turned out well, “Here I lay, dying as the only thing I had to show for my bullheadedness… what an absolute wasted effort.” he said aloud to himself.

The tears began welling in his eyes, they stung with the frigid cold. He didn’t want to die, there were so many things he had yet to experience. His personal freedom was so new, his life as he now lived it had only just begun.

“Why?!” He began to scream into the wind, “Why this way, why now, what did I do to deserve this fate?” The only response he was met with was the wind whipping across Turtlehead Pond, and in through the trees, quaking and creaking as they reeled with each gust.

Defeated, he began to drift off, expecting that the last thing he should ever set eyes on was that damn ledge. That damn ledge…