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Iris Ferretti

The sky is no longer deathly white.

BOM.

BOM.

BOM.

I can feel the muffled heartbeat through the snow.

Bom.

Bom.

Bom.

As it slows, I quicken. My body is cold and aching but no match for the adrenaline that warms each paw as they slice through the crunching layers of ice.

“41. Call 41. He’s found something.”
“Mrs Ferretti?”
“Probably some idiot tourist.”

The pulsing heartbeats of the men are interference as I dive deeper for the only one that matters now. Bom-Bom-Bom. Their voices sound hollow and patchy, as snow flies past my ears and I bury myself deeper and deeper into the solid snow. My nose feels frozen and I can feel every individual snowflake resting upon it. I know there’s already dry snow clumping around my stomach fur. My body is growing lethargic and begs to stop. But I can smell the body, can sense the heat, so I push. I don’t stop when a shovel joins me. It dislodges the snow twice as fast as I can - when it meets the
mark, despite the man’s shaking arms.

The harsh ice sheets that distort colour are sent flying with the shovel and as one man pulls me back and nestles himself around me, the other drops through the snow on his knees and mimics me. Quick, sharp and intricate digs with his paws until material pokes into the hole that's been created. I see now how he sobs. And I match his cries with my own. Our grief and fears hang like crystallised teardrops around us all.

A raven screams in the distance. Perhaps it knows. Perhaps it says, “Please. Please. Please.” Perhaps someone listened.

I’m released and the chill returns. Both men are now on their knees, not praying, but pulling the body through the thin layer of snow separating life and preservation. Suddenly she’s before me, a lady I know the love of. But the fingers that once twirled around my ears and tail are blue and crumpled. My tongue fails to summon heat to her hand, her cheek, her nose, the downfallen eyes of the men. They whimper how I do, a name I cannot speak, but have heard. Iris Ferretti.

bom.

This is how it had felt to slide under the water in Springtime as a child.

bom.

The howling mountain crashing around her.

bom.

A swirling blizzard stealing away the images of fresh mountain daisies she was sure had been there seconds ago.

Her daughter's hand slipping from hers in the bustling Winter crowds.

The sirens fall into a harmony with the remaining heart beats. She's being pulled away but I’m not done. I follow blindly as the sky turns white once again.