Accidental Death

The most dangerous weapon is one you don’t know is charged.

The wind blew from the northwest, blinded by snow and boarded up with ice crystals. All the way to the half-mile abyss he fumbled and pulled out, moaning with ice plates. He screamed piercingly, whirled the snow in a dervish dance around the hollow, piled the snow into a long furrow, a plowed ruler, right through the streamlined clouds of snow.

The sun shone on a black rock glazed with ice, abysses and ridges and ice bridges. He illuminated the snowy slope to a frozen glare, outlined a black shadow along a long furrow and turned at the end of the furrow on an object made of metal and plastic, an artifact thrown into the dead desert.