Part 1
The new history teacher approaches the front of the classroom. Raucous students talk past the bell.
He clears his throat. “Ahem-ahem… Good morning, Class!”
Jokes and jeers culminate into laughter, drowning out his petition to engage a mob of entitled seniors.
His invisibility compels him, “I said, ‘Good morning.’”
Their voices remain at a steady volume.
He turns his volume dial all the way up: “Sit down! All of you! Now!”
Begrudgingly, the class obeys.
He introduces himself as “Mr. B.” He adds, “We will be learning about Nazi Germany during the rise of the Third Reich and World War II.”
A popular yet petulant teenager sneers, “Man, we already know about the Nazis. You’re wasting our time.” Pedro Gomez continues his diatribe, “Go find another class to babysit.”
Students laugh. The middle-aged man waits patiently for the sarcasm to dissolve like Alka-Seltzer.
“I tell you what… You can go home the minute you tell me how the Third Reich manifested—”
“Treaty demands and how the first World War ended,” answers Madison McManus, a precocious, transgendered teenager.
Students start packing their belongings.
He projects a prominent voice: “You didn’t let me finish… How the Third Reich manifested in a society of honest, hardworking German people? Assuming you believe in the humanist principle that people are good by nature.”
They nod.
A student, mocking the military, dressed in camouflage fatigues and combat boots, chimes into the conversation from his seat at the back of the class. “A positive view of human nature is the bedrock of public school education.”
“And what’s your name?”
“Borys… Borys Berlynsky.”
“And the bedrock, Borys? Can it become corrupted?”
“Sure… By corrupt leaders.” He moves to strike: “There’s no such thing as bad students. Only bad teachers.”
The class explodes in a celebrated uproar, giving “high-five” accolades and “fist-bump” kudos to the leader of the antifa group.
The teacher thinks fast, dismantling the delicate situation with humor: “Did you just quote Cobra Kai at me, dude?” The energy shifts direction. The teacher continues, “But wasn’t the teacher once a student? And wasn’t that student’s teacher once a student? And wasn’t that student’s teacher’s teacher once a student? Do you see where I’m going with this?”
“Yeah… Maybe that wasn’t the best analogy. I think people become corrupt along the way. They get manipulated by fear. Or they get seduced by power. Or they’re just misinformed. So what society desperately needs is good public schools. And not more private schools espousing white Christian nationalism.”
The antifa students stand up and shout in unison “Fuck Trump!” before sitting down.
Madison adds, “The Orange Man is Hitler reincarnated.”
“Hmmm… So you think you know better?” he asks the class.
“The Germans were weak to allow themselves to be manipulated and seduced by racism and nationalism,” responds Pedro.
“And you think that that couldn’t happen to you?”
They all laugh.
Pedro smiles and continues, “Take a look around you, bruh… Most of this class is made up of anti-fascist members. We can smell Nazi propaganda comin’ from a mile away.”
The teacher sits down and refrains from speaking for the rest of the class period, contemplating what had been said, while the students resume their conversations.
The next day, they casually stride back into their academic ecosystem to find their alpha instructor missing.
They celebrate. “We can go home early. No more Mr. B!” laughs Borys.
“I knew he wouldn’t last,” expresses Pedro.
Madison glances at the whiteboard. “Hey, look: ‘Meet me outside in the quad.’”
The class walks toward the flagpole that stands tall in the center of the quad where Mr. B is standing and holding a sign with the word “Community.”
“Is this when you tell us we need to sit in a circle and hold hands, singing, ‘We are the world…?’” asks Pedro.
Mr. B ignores the mocking crowd.
“Without community, we fall apart, dissolving into the worst versions of ourselves. We cannot survive if we go rogue, thinking only of ourselves. We should always put the needs of the community first… So, I want you to practice asking your neighbor—what she or he needs. And do whatever possible to meet those needs.”
“Man, this is stupid!” exclaims Pedro.
“Is that right?” he replies then nods and frowns his face. “From what I understand you’re quite the soccer star. It would be a shame not to play your senior year, and miss being scouted, all on account of not passing my class. And just in case you were wondering, this project … is 50% of your grade.”
Pedro reluctantly complies. And so does the rest of the class. But then something remarkable happens: they start to feel good about themselves and their accomplishments.
(Being outside the confines of suffocating white walls, untethered from CRT-primed textbooks on top of desks of democratic indoctrination, the class’s sense of communal pride is stirred. Even Chance Charmander, the class pariah, is included in the social movement, which empowers him to have a voice for the first time.)
Mr. B asks to meet the class in the same spot for the rest of the week.
The following day, he holds up another sign, saying, “The next word I want you to remember is ‘Leadership.’”
They look at Borys to see if he objects. He remains seated on the pavement. Not only that, his ears are intent on listening and his eyes are fixed on the strong leader standing in front of him.
“As your teacher, I’m the leader of this class. I am responsible for your well-being. But I cannot always be with you. So I’m assigning a leader from among you. Someone who can be my eyes and ears when I’m not around.” He walks up to his favorite student. “Borys, please stand up.”
It’s no surprise why he chose the boy. Borys is highly intelligent. Well liked. And charismatic. A born leader.
Their Polish-born teacher challenges them: “You are all to listen and obey whatever your leaders tell you, understand?”
“Yes!” they shout in broken harmony.
“Stand up and salute your superior when he’s talking to you!” commands Borys.
They spring to their feet. “Yes, Sir!”
“That wasn’t loud enough,” apprises their second-in-command. “Get down and give me 50 pushups. On your knuckles!”
The students who complain or cannot finish are given a demerit.
“Now give me 500 jumping jacks.”
Demerits are also given to students who fail to practice perfect form.
Mr. B dismisses them. “Be on time tomorrow.”
Wednesday, they show up early, before the bell. They’re lined up in rows with Borys at the helm.
Mr. B arrives with clipboard in hand. He walks up and down the aisles of saluting statues, taking notes. Any cracks in their posture earns them a demerit. Three demerits earns them a dismissal. Five students are sent home.
He speaks from the heart: “I have to say—I’m impressed with your sense of community and respect for leadership. But that’s nothing without Activism!” he finishes by dropping the clipboard and slamming his fist onto his open hand. “What is justice without action? Action is the meat of true justice. Words are the side salad.” He pauses. “There are no vegetarian activists. Only carnivore’s with claws. But I can see that not all of you have what it takes to be exceptional individuals. Only those of you who are willing to be led and rise to action above your current state of unbelief.”
Lightning strikes the heart of each person standing still. They’re all thinking the same thing: Who are the vegetarians? Who are the carnivores?
“I have a surprise for you tomorrow. Don’t be late. We’re leaving at 7am sharp for a weeklong retreat. Food will be provided. I’ve already talked to your parents and they’ve signed off on you going.”
6:59am the following day, Mr. B stands underneath the flagpole with something folded in his hands. The clock turns 7. Four students are not standing on their assigned numbers.
Voices are then heard yelling, “We got stuck in traffic.”
Borys looks over at his teacher who shakes his head back at him. He understands its meaning.
“Don’t look at them,” says Borys to the rest of the class. “From now on, you are to shun them. They’re dead to us. Dead weight, dragging us down… If they can’t be here with us now when things are easy, how can we trust them when things are hard?”
“Now, for your act of loyalty,” announces Mr. B, “I will have your superior replace the American flag with this one.”
Borys hoists up the replacement flag, flapping in the wind. It’s a picture of a black claw in the center of a white flag. He also passes out T-shirts made for them with the same claw of a panther printed on the front.
“And for your final lesson, heed these words: withdraw from all that is not a direct source of strength. Wield the sword that strikes at the heart of weakness.” He pauses for dramatic effect. “Wokeness is a weakness. A plague. A whore with a transmittable disease that will infect the lives of those it clings to. The only thing that can loosen its grip is the carnivore’s claw. And now our acronym, C.L.A.W.W., is complete: Community. Leadership. Action. Withdraw. Wield.”
Pedro breaks his stance. “How can ‘woke’ be wrong?”
“Silence!” shouts Borys.
“It’s okay. I’ll take it from here,” says Mr. B facing his students: “I understand how you must be feeling. It’s hard to unlearn a conviction, especially one that’s gaining momentum, espoused by peers, parents and politicians. But if you give me a chance, I can prove that the ‘woke’ movement is a lie because it cannot survive in the wild—the true litmus test to what’s real.”
Pedro acquiesces, getting on the bus with the rest of the class, which is headed toward a snow-covered mountain for Christmas break. Secretly, he takes out his cell phone, which the class was forbidden to bring. He texts his mom. Chance sees him and immediately rats him out.
Pedro presses “send” before Borys takes it from him. The phone is tossed out the window, landing several hundred feet down the mountain.
In the snow, the phone buzzes. Pedro’s mom responds, “Where are you? I’m worried sick. Your friends’ parents are also worried. The police are looking for all of you… Call me!”
Part 2
As they reach the summit, Mr. B parks the bus and stands at the front, blocking the exit. He stares at their impressionable faces. No one says a word.
The awkward silence is broken.
“One of you will betray me,” shares their teacher.
They look around cranking their necks.
He continues, “Up here, only the strong survive.”
“Excuse me for asking,” says Madison, “but what’re we doing here?”
“Yeah… We’re all wondering the same thing,” adds Pedro.
“Before I share that information, I want you all to head to your cabin and get settled in. Your training will start at dawn. Get some sleep.”
“What about dinner?” asks Madison. “We’re all starving… We tried eating some of Farhad’s mom’s Baba Ganoush with our fingers but our hands started to stink.”
“Who told you, you could eat?”
“No one did… We were, we were getting hungry—”
“It’s my fault,” interrupts Farhad Hosseini.
Mr. B stares at him. “Okay. Come with me.”
They disappear together behind Mr. B’s log cabin.
“Bang!” a gunshot echoes across the mountain.
Every student tenses up. All except for Borys.
As Mr. B returns, alone, Pedro inquires with a cautious tone: “What happened to Farhad?”
“He’s fine.”
“But we heard a gunshot.”
“Oh, that… I shot at a bear to scare him away.”
“Wait! You’ve had a gun this whole time?” says Pedro, more as an accusation than a question.
Mr. B brushes it aside. “This mountain is murderous… Anyway, his penance for breaking the rules is to stand guard during night.”
They are terrified for their friend and terrified by their teacher who they’ve come to learn is armed.
He recognizes the looks on their faces. “I can see that you’re scared. I’m putting the gun away,” he says placing the FB Vis behind his back inside the band of his belt buckle.
Suddenly, Madison starts to shake, uncontrollably.
“Oh no!” shouts Pedro. “He’s having a seizure! He’s hypoglycemic. We have to get him some food. What time is dinner?”
Madison is laid down on the snow. Pedro takes off his jacket and folds it to form a pillow to put under his head.
“That’s up to you,” says Mr. B with an eerie, calm voice. He whistles at Borys.
Borys reaches behind a girthy maple tree, procuring a long weapon. A crossbow. He tosses it to his superior.
Mr. B holds it over his head. “Hidden throughout the mountain are weapons you can use to hunt your own dinner. There’s just one caveat: no sharing.”
“But what about Madison? He can’t hunt,” advocates the shy student who rarely speaks.
“But you said food was provided,” adds Pedro.
“It is… This mountain is stocked with animals you can kill for food.”
“But what if we don’t know how?”
“Then you won’t be celebrating Christmas. Ever again!”
The grim looks on their faces are the furthest thing they could’ve ever imagined they would pack for their trip. They thought they were going to participate in some elaborate scavenger hunt, do some “trust drills,” and maybe have a campfire or two. But nothing they’ve read in their history books has prepared them for this.
“So who’s going to prove themselves today?” asks Borys.
They begin to fight among themselves. “This has gotten way out of hand. I never signed up for the starvation tour,” says Pedro sarcastically. “I say we get the keys from President Snow and get the hell outta here.”
“What about our grades?” asks Chance.
“What about our lives?” retorts Pedro.
Mr. B speaks up: “If you leave now, Madison will be dead by the time you reach the bottom of the mountain.”
“We can’t leave now,” answers the timid teenager. “Remember: ‘Action is the meat of true justice. Words are the side salad.’”
“Damn it! All right! I’ll do it,” says Pedro with a loud sigh.
“Wait!” another student counters. “What if Madison is the vegetarian?”
“He is a vegetarian,” responds Pedro.
“No. I mean what if he’s the weak link. The traitor.”
“Yeah, he’s the most ‘woke’ out of all of us,” replies Chance. “He’s trans. He’s the president of the LGBTQ club at school. And he’s debated Charlie Kirk. Okay, maybe not the Charlie Kirk, but another white Republican named Charlie Kirk.”
“So?” answers the boy with the bow.
“Mr. B did say that wokeness is a wart on the nose of society.”
“That’s not what he said… He said, ‘wokeness is weakness,’” challenges Pedro, pulling back on the bow string.
Chance follows up: “And why is that?”
“I … don’t remember,” he answers with an annoyed tone.
“’Because it cannot survive in the wild.’”
“So what are you saying? That we shouldn’t fight for one of our own? Doing whatever possible to meet each other’s needs… Isn’t that what Mr. B taught us?”
“I’m just saying we leave him to his own device. We’re not the ones pulling the trigger… Remember: woke is a lie in the wild, which is the true litmus test to what’s real.”
“But that’s the same as killing him!” thunders Pedro.
The staunch loyalist, Chance, stands next to Mr. B and takes a poll. “All in favor of finding our own food, raise your hand.”
The overwhelming majority of students touch the sky.
“This is lame. I’m going to save our friend,” says Pedro.
“You’re going to need these,” reveals Borys, holding a quiver full of arrows, which he straps around his shoulder.
Pedro realizes he’s bested.
Mr. B speaks, “Nobody eats tonight. That’s your punishment for not all being obedient soldiers… Tomorrow morning, the rooster will crow. Then you’ll be free to kill.”
Their teacher then does something unexpected. He grabs the bow from Pedro and draws an arrow from its quiver and shoots it in the shy student’s direction. It misses her head by inches, getting lodged into the tree directly behind her. Everyone stares at him as he walks toward the scared student. He pulls out the arrow. A steady stream of maple sap oozes out.
“Place this under his tongue. He’ll live… Now, go to bed.”
Later that night, the entire class—with the exception of Pedro, Madison, and the shy student—participates in conversations about dominant and recessive alleles. They all agree that the dominant eye color, which is brown, is superior to all other colors.
“Have you noticed,” shares Chance, “everyone that stands with Mr. B has brown eyes, including Borys. But Madison has blue eyes. Blue eyes being recessive. Not dominant.”
“What about me? I have brown eyes,” interrupts Pedro. “So much for that theory.”
“It’s not just eye color,” says another student.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He answers back, “Dude, you’re an illegal alien.”
“So?”
“That makes you sympathetic to the woke movement. It caters to your kind: Diversity. Equity. Inclusion.”
“And what ‘kind’ is that?”
“Dude, take it easy. I’m just talking facts… And speaking of facts,” pauses Chance before punctuating his point, “I’m tired of illegals, including criminals, crossing our borders and getting the same rights and benefits that hardworking American people pay into! And now equality isn’t even enough. It’s about equity!” He points his finger in Pedro’s direction. “Did you know there are benefits my family doesn’t qualify for because of the color of our skin? Talk about racism! And to add insult to injury, I have to apologize for being white. It’s bullshit! I’m sick of it!” shouts the class mascot who was once the class pariah.
“Yeah, me, too!” shouts another loyalist. Several other students are inspired to express their discontent over being woke.
Pedro recognizes he’s fighting a hostile crowd. He changes tactics. “Don’t you see. This is what he wants. He wants us to turn on each other.”
“No. He doesn’t,” contests Chance. “He wants us to be united in community. Strength in numbers! He wants us to withdraw from what is evil—the serpent of woke ideology—and wield the sword of superiority and greatness. Slicing the snake with our claws in order to free prisoners who’ve been captured by her poisonous lies.”
Pedro shuts down. He gets up to check on Madison, then lies back down to sleep with one eye open.
The next day, the rooster fails to crow. Mr. B sends Borys to check it out. The grating creature is dead. Someone snapped its neck.
“I guess I’ll do it myself,” says Mr. B under his breath before shouting, “Cock-a-doodle-doo… This is your wakeup call!”
Pedro, who hasn’t slept a wink, comes running into the cabin. “I found Farhad’s body. Or, at least, I think it was Farhad… There was a trail of blood. So I followed it. I found pieces of flesh but no clothes. I’m sure it was Farhad!”
Mr. B walks in after hearing the commotion. “That’s not your concern, son.”
“Don’t call me, ‘son.’ And I’m not playing your sick game anymore. Give me the keys. I’m getting off Caradhras.”
Mr. B jiggles the keys in front of him. “You want these?” He walks outside and chucks the keys off the mountain.
All his students, even the ones sympathetic to his cause, scream in unison, “What the hell d’yah do that for?!”
Pedro lunges at his teacher. Mr. B sidesteps the raging bull who trips and falls into the snow. The other students watch with both amazement and fear.
“Get up! And do what I tell you.”
“No,” says Pedro. “You told us we have to be a community, and do everything together. So, if I don’t go, we starve.”
All the students, who had just sided with Pedro after the key incident, now oppose him. He’s gone too far, isolating himself from his friends, once again.
One of the loyalists walks over to him and kicks him, which causes an aggressive chain reaction. Soon all the students, including Madison and the shy one, assault their once dear friend.
“Enough!” shouts Mr. B. He walks over to Pedro, looks down at him, and speaks. “He doesn’t have to hunt, if he doesn’t want to.”
Initially, the students are flabbergasted by his cavalier response. Then Mr. B whistles for Borys. The boy walks out of the cabin, holding a leash. Attached is a 250 lb black panther.
“You leave me no other choice. You all have five minutes before Borys releases “Claw” here… You’re not just fighting for food anymore. Now you’re fighting not to get eaten.”
“I’m sorry,” says Pedro limping toward his teacher. “I’ll do whatever—”
“Too late… You failed this course. I guess being a leader was never your dominant trait.” He looks at his stopwatch, then shouts, “RUN!”
Part 3
Students, deprived of food and drink, run on fear and adrenaline. Their growling stomachs are overshadowed by the echoing growl of the hungry mountain closing in on them. Most students stay close together while some go rogue. Within minutes, a scream is heard. The beast chased the shy student off a cliff.
A thick fog rolls in, which is accompanied by a 10 degree drop in temperature.
Madison runs alongside Pedro, acting as his crutch.
He apologies, “I’m sorry I joined the lynch mob.”
Pedro responds, “I’m sorry I got us into this mess.”
“Forget about it… You can thank me by staying alive.”
Pedro faces reality. “If you stay with me, you’ll get eaten.”
“Maybe. Maybe not… But if I don’t stay with you, you’ll definitely get eaten.”
Pedro ponders the offer. “Okay… What do you propose?”
“Let’s start by building an igloo,” suggests Madison. “I saw a shovel in a bush a few yards back.”
“I dig it,” he says with a wink.
The rest of the group amasses weapons: axes, machetes, knives, handguns, and assault rifles, as well as survival tools, such as a compass, a first aid kit, matches, and a pair of binoculars. One student, assigned to reconnaissance by Chance—the new leader of the loyalists, discovers a cluster of tents on a plateau at the top of the mountain. Another student is assigned to hunt their supper. At midnight, they light a fire in the center of the camp. Their kill is slowly roasted and divided into equal parts.
The students sleep sporadically throughout the night with wild mountain songs piercing the darkness. A sentinel is chosen to stand guard, walking the perimeter. But what the sentry doesn’t know is that the man-eating cat has been stalking them all night. Behind a thick, white curtain of fog, the panther waits to pounce on its next victim.
As the curtain commences to recede, one student looks down and sees a trail of fat, feline footprints that quickly recedes into the distance. Staring directly into the fog, he makes out a majestic shape. A muscular creature on all fours walking with diabolical intentions toward them. He tries to yell and warn his friends. As he gets the first word out, a carnivorous mouth with menacing teeth targets his jugular. Chance pushes him out of the way before any damage can be done. In mid-flight, the panther swats its paws at the leader of the loyalists but misses.
The rest of the class immediately dives toward the armaments. Each student grabs a weapon of choice, shooting and throwing knives at the beast. But no matter how much it’s bulleted and stabbed, it continues to pursue them.
“This thing must be on some kind of methamphetamine,” observes Chance. “The only way to kill it is to cut off its head.”
The panther encircles them. They’re almost out of weapons.
“I know…” says a loyalist, pointing at the student holding the machete. “Climb that tree and when this God-forsaken thing is below you, jump on it and thrust your sword down through its neck.”
Their plan is a success. Their threat eliminated.
Chance drags the cat’s decapitated head across the snow, leaving a bloody trail.
As they walk back to their cabin, they pass by Pedro’s igloo. Chance sends a student to find a big stick.
“What are you going to do with it?” asks the student.
“It’s none of your concern,” he answers. “Now do what I tell you.”
“I can’t believe that after everything our teacher has done to us, you’re still on his side.”
“Whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”
The other students keep quiet, wondering if he’s gone “dark” like their teacher.
He gets a hold of the stick and sharpens both ends, sticking one end into the ground, and then shoving the head of the panther onto the other end, facing the igloo and blocking the entrance.
“Now they’ll be too afraid to come out.”
Chance and his crew leave the vegetarians behind.
Getting closer, they hear singing. Then they smell smoke. Borys and Mr. B sit around a campfire, burning pictures of Nazi leaders who had murdered their loved ones in concentration camps, while they sing a popular Polish song of lament.
“You’re related, aren’t you?” asks Chance.
“Yes, we are,” answers Mr. B, standing up. “My name is Bosko Berlynsky. And Borys is my son.”
The class, or what’s left of it, is in shock. “You were quite convincing,” says Chance, “pretending to be an anti-fascist.”
“My father and I have been planning this for years. We needed to show you Americans the horror of the tyranny of the Nazis and the Third Reich that tormented and exterminated our family in Poland. Not to mention the fact that fascism can be recreated, even in today’s so-called ‘politically evolved culture’ and ‘civil society.’”
“But we trusted you,” says Chance. “I vouched for you.” He shakes his head. “I won’t let you harm anyone else.”
He accosts his teacher. Bosko takes out his gun.
The boy freezes, then asks, “Is that the gun you used to kill Farhad?”
“Is that what you all think? I could never harm a student.”
“And we’re supposed to believe that? We trusted you… I vouched for you… Now give me the gun!”
“I cannot personally hand a student a loaded gun,” he shares. “But if you wanted to try to take it from me,” he adds with a twisted grin, “that’s a different story.”
Chance takes something out of his pocket. It’s a 4-inch claw from the black panther. He holds it between his right index finger and middle-finger.
“I see you battled the beast. And won. Good for you! Now, I suppose you think you can take me.”
“I was thinking of starting with your boy.”
Borys takes off his jacket and walks toward Chance without a scintilla of trepidation. Borys utilizes a style of fighting called Polish Szalba, which involves fighting with a sabre. Chance is at a disadvantage, drawing from a limited resource—a week’s long training of Krav Maga when he was nine-years-old, which proves to be no match to Borys’s sabre.
Knocked down, crawling on all fours, Chance looks for the claw he dropped in the snow. Borys kicks him in the stomach. Chance spits up blood. As his head is about to be split open with the sabre, Chance jumps up like a spry cat and stabs Borys in the neck with the claw. He asphyxiates in his own blood.
Bosko watches in horror as his son is killed in front of him. Instinctively, he raises his hand holding the gun and shoots Chance in the shoulder, missing the target. This time, he steadies his hand and points the gun at the boy’s head. Just before he pulls the trigger, an axe comes spinning toward his chest from 30 ft away. Their teacher is impaled.
Breathless, he falls to the ground. Pedro stands with his hand still stretched out after throwing the axe. (The natural curvature of the mountain shielded their hero from being seen.) He walks up to Chance.
Chance expresses his gratitude: “I can’t thank you enough for saving—”
Pedro picks up Bosko’s gun and points it at him.
Chance responds: “What the hell are you doin’?!”
“You were gonna leave me to die.”
Madison expresses her horror: “It’s over, Pedro. Let him go… It wasn’t his fault. It was Bosko’s. He got into our heads.”
“What he taught us wasn’t wrong. ‘In the wild, only the strong survive.’”
Chance reacts, “Believe me, I know what you’re thinking. But following a dead dictator will only get you killed.”
“Who says anything about following?” replies Pedro pointing the FB Vis at Madison’s head. “Why obey the rules, when you can be its master?”
“But I saved your life.”
“You kicked me when I was down and preyed on my weakness. But never again…”
Madison closes his eyes, accepting his fate. Pedro presses back on the trigger. But the bullet stays in the chamber. There’s no natural explanation.
At that moment, a park ranger ascends the final peak of the mountain. He assesses the situation, calls for backup, and tells Pedro to stand down. Pedro acquiesces, throwing the gun at the feet of the ranger.
“How did you know where we were?” asks Madison.
Farhad follows closely behind.
“You’re alive,” shouts Madison.
“Of course… Why wouldn’t I be?”
Farhad had missed it. The brutality of the wild. The rage of winter. The bipolar disorder of snow. The evil eye of the mountain. He was spared from all of it. But why? Why him and not Madison? Why him and not Pedro? Why him and not Chance? Maybe that’s not the right question, especially on this side of the eschaton. Maybe we’ll never know.
As they descend the mountain, it begins to snow. It’s Christmas morn. A song rises up to meet them from the town below. Pedro falls, knees first, into the fresh white powder. He bows his head and his heart. Tears stream down both cheeks as he sings the last two lines:
“Go, tell it on the mountain
That Jesus Christ is born.”