American Lit Story I was forced to write that I am rediculusly proud of:


Cause of Death

The day dawned cold and brisk. The red line in the thermometer was nothing but a little stub surrounded by brittle glass. Grey clouds formed into black clouds, then thinned back out into white strands, promising a blizzard. However, the wind was still, the outside was quiet as the grave, and the air was charged, anticipating the coming storm.
Despite the obvious violence in the sky, Megan, Matt, and Maxi were planning a ski trip.
Megan was a girl of 14, halfway through her first year of high school. She was a tallish, brown-haired, blue-eyed girl, less than average looking and with a general lack of presence among a crowd. Her innate chatter often was a cause for people to disregard her.
However, her friend Maxi was her polar opposite. Maxi, too, was tall, but it wasn't her height that commanded other's attention. Her words were always spoken with meaning; even the little jokes she said contained significance. She wasn't pretty, per se, but instead charismatic, with an ability to acquire the trust of a complete stranger.
It was these qualities that made Maxi both the best friend and worst enemy of Megan. Maxi understood Megan. She knew the innermost thoughts of her and that Megan was nothing but a scared little girl, afraid of being unaccepted and ridiculed. But who hadn't seen that her fears had come true. Maxi knew the true faults of Megan- her pride and ignorance.
The ignorance kept Megan from seeing the faults of Maxi. The selective vision, hearing, and understanding kept Megan from seeing that Maxi was not perfect, that Maxi could do wrong. This does not mean that Megan liked her- on the contrary she hated her. Maxi was everything she wanted to be, but couldn't. But Maxi understood this about her friend. And so they remained, not exactly friends, but rather allies, able to combine forces in times of need.
Matt was the third member of the group. He was Megan's brother, nine years old, a rough attempt at a tough guy. In the reality that could not sink into his young mind, he was something else entirely different. He was a jerk, destined to be a drunk, an abuser, a social outcast, unaccepted because he was a victim of a generation of male machoism and egotism. Megan refused to find fault with the image Matt had built around himself. Despite big-sister to little-brother problems, they were bound together by their self-centeredness. They were defensive about one another, even though they did not really like each other.
On this blustery, grey morning, the three unlikely companions were venturing out to a nearby patch of mountains.
Maxi was a four-year veteran to the sport of skiing. She had a knack for staying up despite ice, rocks, or articles of clothing lost in the middle of a hill. Megan had ample experience, but a lack of natural talent and maneuverability.
Today, however, Maxi and Megan felt like being rebellious. They decided to try to join Matt on snowboards. Of course, they never really expected to keep up with him. It would just suffice enough for them to learn the skill.
Maxi looked up at the sky. It continued, as the hours dripped by, to turn itself into a congealed mass of grey and black, setting a darkness into the slopes long before night. Snow fell, at first a flake here and there, then turning the mountains into a snow globe, then into a wall of television static. Maxi had been failing horribly at her snowboarding excursion all day. Megan, however, had found her natural talent, perhaps discovered as a result of her dismal skiing skills. The weather had become so bad, Maxi feared she would not be able to do any more runs safely.
"Come on!" shouted Megan above the swift winds. "We can still fit in on last run."
Maxi knew she only wanted to do another run to show off the one skill she surpassed her in. This didn't matter to Maxi- she still wanted to go in.
After a short debate on the issue, Matt boarded his way up to them. His toned skills were obvious against theirs. He sided with Megan in the argument, and Maxi eventually agreed for two reasons- one to stifle Megan's horrible pride, and another because she knew keeping up the discord would only keep them out longer.
With a glare in the direction of the united siblings, Maxi boarded the lift.
After a struggle to get off the moving chairs, they began snowboarding down a wide hill. Maxi kept falling, getting up, and blindly following the path again. There was a white sheet in front of her, but at least the only direction she could go was down. Suddenly, she nearly collided with Megan's cream-colored jacket.
"Hey!" yelled Megan, against the now grating wind, "look, let's go there, we'll be able to see better!" she pointed.
Maxi looked at the trail Megan had indicated. It was a winding, twisting, icy trail, completely canopied by trees. The irony was that these trees made the journey both safe and difficult- they reduced the snow wall to little more than flurries, and at the same time offered obstacles. Matt's black jacket was a blob amongst the forest.
Maxi began the trip slowly. Bib by bit, tree by tree, she made it down the hill. The sudden ice beneath her surprised her. She fell, but didn't hurt herself too badly. Glancing down the hill, she noticed the way down got much steeper- too steep, even if she made painstaking progress. She unstrapped her board and skidded down in her boots.
Matt and Megan laughed at her for her fear. She didn't care what they thought- at least she wouldn't run into a tree.
Megan stopped partway down to wait for Maxi. "Haha!" she said, "you can barely make it down the hill by foot, and watch this!" she said with a crazy sounding note in her voice, as if nothing but the will to prove herself was motivating her now.
She started boarding down. She quickly gained momentum. Too quickly. Maxi watched with horror, realizing Megan no longer had control. Time slowed down as Megan sped up. Before Maxi could even think, Megan had hit a tree, then the ground, sliding down the slope, dragging on the ice, and leaving a trait of blood behind her.
Maxi stood, too far away to help, as the world around her created a box. The trees overhead made the shadows black, and their bark, wet from falling snow shared this ebony. The walls were white, thick snowfall impossible to see through. But the ground was whitest of all, the epitome of clean.
Streaked through this was the blood.
Slowly, painfully slowly, Maxi waded her way down through drifts and skated across ice. She did not scream or cry, only watched the scene as though from the outside of her little box. She did not notice Matt, in shock, eyes glazed over from the dread of his sister's blood.
Maxi leaned over the lifeless body of Megan. She took a pulse, but found none. Megan was gone, lost to her one true accomplishment, victim of arrogance, slaughtered by ignorance.
Maxi tried to get Matt to come after her. After a time he did, though still in shock, leading Maxi down with robotic movements of his snowboard. Maxi followed, continuing to stumble down the hill.
After an eternity, they reached the lodge.

-

When all was said and done, Maxi was left with a strange feeling of regret. Not regret at Megan's death, but rather the circumstances surrounding it.
Megan had died because she was stupidly brazen. She had tried too hard to be the best, and failed in the most painful of ways.
She had died not because of the wound. The cut had been deep, but not fatal. Rather, it was the cold that killed her. The Ski Patrol had trouble accessing the remote slope- it had turned out that it wasn't a real trail, and was cut by skiers looking for a thrill, making it hard for a snowmobile to get through. For an hour, she had been trapped in an icy hell, the cold seeping into her body. The worst is that they said she had been conscious for this. She had wakened up, only to have no way to escape. In the end, she didn't feel any pain- she had died numb.
Maxi felt no regret for her lack of help. She had done what she could- the Ski Patrol said she could not feel the pulse because of the cold, and there would have been nothing to do, anyway. Matt was still in shock. Megan's family was numb now on the inside, while she had been numb outside.
Maxi was saved by her cowardice. This was her biggest regret- could she have done the slope? If so, would that have stopped Megan from showing off? The last words she had heard from Megan were the taunts of her being scared. But Megan had been scared on the inside for a long, long time.
And this was the cause of death.


yum? great name change effot, eh?

yo ho
yo ho
a (mean, evil, subliminal messaging) pirate's life for
~me

P.S. thanks Caitlin for helping!!