Et in Arcadia…

Just lying there last night, at the end of the day, mind idling in neutral, I think of a scene, a situation. It’s not from any piece of work, not from anything I’m working on or plan to do:

An ice wind hard and steady across the Siberian steppe. Wolf howls in the distance. Closer…

The crump and creak of deep snow under snow-shoes, laboured breath in a deepening twilight…

Ivan and Pyotr haul their sledge between snow-clad firs. Frost rimes their beards, their breath plumes in the chill air. A steady slog, two miles to the cabins, amber light in the windows, warmth, and company. 

‘Beating the wolves off with one hand,’ my partner suggests. Then: ‘That sounded wrong.’

~

Names have been withheld to protect the guilty.