Flash Fiction: G.A. Scheinoha

CROSSING THE SNOWFIELDS ALONE

Perhaps you never envisioned death as the usual cliche; a bony specter in ebony cloak arriving by gondola to ferry you across the River Styx in style. If anything, he'd come as a great white wonder and the boat, a kayak of course.

The river itself; an icy fiord crowded with floes as big as all the attachments we make in life. Or maybe death would appear as a hazy figure in a fur hooded parka, face drawn in against the cold.

He'd tap you on the shoulder, startling you out of surrounding thoughts. Perhaps he whispers "it's time to go," if he has the breath left after such a long trip.

You glance up to see the tundra you've become a part of, nod in agreement. Horrified by how easy, calmly you're accepting this.

Then you step forward into that waiting dogsled, his hand on your arm, as if to warn: "don't hurt yourself climbing in." Though he's right there beside you, you'll cross those snowfields alone. A moment in white and the wilderness swallows you. Though God only knows where.



~ G.A. Scheinoha said: Call it a prose poem, miniature, micro, what have you. But I was writing these brief narratives before anyone thought to attach labels to the form. I have other information from him.