• The flakes of snow that fell were large and heavy, but drifted down on the evening air like feathers from the clouds unseen above. Everything had a blue or orange tinge to it, depending where you stood near the street lamps, some new, some old. It was a definite change of seasons, watching the lamp lighters moving around to the old fashioned stores, lighting the actual lamps for the night, while the more modern electric lamps buzzed to life one by one as six-o-clock rang up on everyone's clocks. Even the town's clock tower, a part of the old town hall, dinged and donged like always, but seemed more subdued, almost in reverence of the soft and quiet, first winter snow.

    The older customers had been talking about the coming snowfall for a week, making sure their vegetables were taken in, rose bushes covered and fallen leaves raked and cleaned away. Talk of the Halloween not long before and the Thanksgiving coming up, and even comments on Christmas recipes this year that all the old ladies enjoyed so much and loved to share if you let them. The men were grumpy, knowing they'd have to shovel walkways and salt the roads and keep it clear for the vehicles and the older folk, and all the children were excited, throwing snowballs, building snowmen and forts and wishing fervently it would snow all weekend so there would be a snow-day come Monday...all of it was typical of the charming little town as autumn gave in to old man Wynter and the ancient, loved trees let go of their remaining leaves.

    Already the scents of baked pies and turkeys lingered within walking distance of the grocery stores, the two the town had, and laughter and talk was still abundant though the sun had set beyond the mountains and the evening was dark, due to the low and snow-filled cloud above. Despite the grumpiness that came hand in hand with the season's change, everyone felt it, a coming of family holidays, warm and safe, and full of the love that they should be. Winter was cold and hard, but, as some said...'home was where the hearth was'...and there wasn't a hearth that did not warm a family in this town.

    Delicate, pale fingers pulled a rogue lock of hair back over her ear as she looked up to the sky, watching the large flakes fall, melting in her hair, hanging onto her long and thick lashes. She felt the cool kisses on her cheeks each time she blinked, and a soft smile graced her red and full lips, the small details of the falling snow and what it meant filling her with a special joy she was sure she was one of the few to truly understand and love. A small breeze picked up and puled out the rogue lock of hair again, and she couldn't help a soft laugh as she turned her gaze forward and walked with the wind towards her car, letting it have it's way with her hair, playing with her as she always felt it did.

    She was aware of the delicious scents of the baking and cooking, the laughter and playfulness that filled everyone around her. She was even more aware of the families that came and went, the loving couples that had come into the store, whispering and giggling over the wines they would choose for that weekend, and the younger crowd that came in for their beer or vodka, laughing about the good times that would begin. All of it, she handled with a polite smile, an odd joke, and a few declines of invitations to warm a lonely man's night with her company. Despite all the signs of a season full of love and joy, she herself was glad for the end of the day, to enjoy the night on her own, and finally have the chance to sit in her car and just breath, relaxing a moment before she put the keys in the ignition and started it up.

    As she pulled out of her employee's parking spot and out onto the road that followed the river, where she would cross the bridge, she thought ahead to home. She had chopped enough wood to keep her warm over the weekend with little problem, she enjoyed the warm fires in the fireplaces in her large house rather than paying the gas bill for such a large place throughout the winter. She had ought oil for the lamps earlier that week, and roses...lots of roses. Yes, home seemed like a warm and beautiful place, a place of her dreams, her little escape from the town, the happiness of others, and from her own inner pain.

    it had snowed all day, and tough there wasn't quite ice on the roads yet, she noted that her tires weren't getting enough grip on the snow on the roads, so she slowed herself down, taking things a bit easier as she came to a stop sign, and waited for a group of kids to go across the road, chasing each other with hockey sticks and the occasional snowball again. She chuckled to herself, watching them and remembering the times when her brother and her had wrestled in the first snows. Such innocent times.

    As soon as the kids were done though, she started forward again, and left them, and her memories behind, watching ahead for any other cars as she turned down another road and headed eastwards, to the edge of town. The drive was only ten minutes, normally, but with the snow being as slippery as it was, she wondered what the hill would be like leading up to her house. She grimaced, then shrugged. She'd deal with it when she got there.

    She flipped on the radio, switching stations, then sighed and pushed in a CD. She sang softly, focusing more on the road and possible traffic than usual. She had to slow down shortly after she left town, and even stop as a small group of deer leaped across the road. One stopped in front of her, a doe, her back speckled with the large snow flakes and making her look like a large fawn. She looked back at her, her ears up high, listening as she stared into her headlights, and so she turned the lights off. She watched the doe's shadow move off to the side, and she sighed, turning the lights back on, and after checking both sides of the road again, began forward again. Too many accidents she had driven past where the ambulance was cleaning up a person or the forestry people were cleaning up a hit deer. It was sad really, and she wished there was a safe way to keep the deer off the roads...but she knew there really wasn't. Just another example of humans existing where they shouldn't.

    She shook her head, trying not to get worked up over it as she followed the curve of the road, still keeping an eye out for deer, especially as the angle of the road began to rise, leading her around the bend of trees then up the hill. As she passed the great pines and their snowy boughs, she glanced to her right and out the passenger window to the town below. It looked like a fairytale in some Christmas story, all aglow, even though Christmas wasn't for another month and some. She had to admit though...the snow made it seem quite magical. This made her smile and she turned her attention back to the road ahead.

    The road continued up, the lights below appearing like fireflies between the heavy boughs of the trees that rose and fell, like a wave of dark and light contrasts to her right as she tried to see through the thick flakes up hill. She had to turn off her brights, since everything was so white, but as soon as she did so she saw something flick across the road. Frowning, she slowed to a stop, turning on the brights again, looking to see what it had been. Nothing moved, and she rolled her eyes. "Another deer...I hope this winter isn't as bad as last year...twenty bloody accidents..." She muttered softly to herself as she started forward once more, adjusting the brights again so she could see without being blinded by the large flakes.

    As soon as she had begun to move again, and she saw another shadow, too close to the front of the car, and she slammed on the brakes, not wanting to hit the damn animal, and not wanting to have to pay for fixing a huge dent in her car. Her hands gripped the wheel and she looked ahead and to the side, trying to see if the thing had passed, and when she turned to her right something hit the car from the left, hard enough that she shrieked and felt the back wheels slide to the right. She gasped a breath and with wide eyes looked to the left, trying to see what had hit her, when it happened again, only from ahead of her. The car was pushed back!

    She it her lip as she kept her foot on the brake, trying to see what was hitting her. Was she in the middle of a herd? Maybe a moose? But she just couldn't see... Another bump, and then another, and suddenly she realized she was shrieking with each bump. Feeling panic surging up within her she looked behind her for the road, trying to see if she could back up. It seemed clear, and for a moment the bumps stopped. She gasped a breath and bit her trembling lip, looking out the windows. She couldn't see anything! What in the world was going on?

    Her knuckles had turned white on the steering wheel and she took a deep breath, trying to calm down as she tried to move, wanting to straighten herself. She couldn't tell how close to the edge of the road she was, and the fact that the steep road where she was, was almost one-hundred-fifty feet above the valley floor, was not comforting her in the least. She slowly inched forward, farther from the side of the road, and though she moved slowly, wary of more of whatever was battering her car, she felt herself sigh lightly, a little relieved as the car straightened.

    She was moving forward again, back to her other slow pace, feeling better with every meter she got closer to the turn off to her house. Then a large shadow appeared in her lights, and she felt a sinking feeling as she stopped before a great, fallen tree. She blinked, and could almost feel the colour drain from her face as she realized there was no way for her to get over or under or around the damnable and broken pine that lay across the road, and she cursed under her breath. She'd have to back down the hill again...in the snow...avoiding deer and gods knew what else...to get one of the two trucks to pull the tree away.

    With a heavy sigh she put her car into reverse, and too quickly she started back, looking out her mirrors. Just as she turned her gaze from one mirror to the next, the car ran over something, and quite suddenly she felt her brakes not working. Through her mirrors she saw branches, and as her car kept gong, she saw a smaller tree, one that hadn't been there when she had been going up...and laying vertically with the road, not across? "What in the f--" her words were lost in another shriek as the wheel was yanked from her hands and the car picked up speed going down the hill. She stamped on the brakes, tears lighting her eyes as she tried to turn the wheel, not wanting to accept the fact that her car was headed for the edge of the road, and the pines below...and the valley nearly two hundred feet below.

    And then it happened. She felt time freeze for herself as she watched her headlights shining on snowflakes, into tree branches, passed winter bitten bark and she heard the crash of glass as she passed through the tough middle limbs of the pines and spun down to the bluff below. She watched as the rocks appeared in her headlights and she was sure she had to be screaming, but everything seemed to be coming through cotton in her ears. And all the while as she watched the ground rushing up to meet her, she couldn't help but wonder 'why like this?'

    Then sound erupted in her ears, splitting the silence with the sound of crunching metal, ripped fiber, the sensation of a warmth spreading from her temple and leg and her own scream until her head met her driving wheel and everything went dark and wonderfully silent once more.