I
wake
up after the avalanche
and see fingers strewn before
me—little frostbitten stumps discharged from this body that made the most desperate of felicific calculi. I remember the backwards roar of the mountain before it sighed down upon me—turning to look but seeing
nothing, hearing only a broad rustling that reverberated toward where I stood. I held my hands out in front of me, still, trying to give myself a reference point so I could see if the ground was indeed moving or if it was just me.