Fantasy Romance
At the center of the devastation was a child, no more than ten.
She wore burned clothes and smelled of fire and death.
Clutching her head between her hands, she whimpered.
But when she looked up at me, I saw the madness had already taken her.
And people wondered why I hated mages.
The devastation.
The dead lying in the streets.
The burning buildings. I would ask how it had happened, but it would be the same story.
It always was.
I have been doing a bit of research for another story.
Along the way, I started researching avalanches. For no reason. No reason at all…
Anyway, I thought I would share the results of some of that.
That is correct. It’s a plot point in many movies, but noise simply does not have enough force to trigger an avalanche. I was more than a little surprised by this, though I should know by now Hollywood spins a good story, not necessary an accurate one.
Those sudden and inexplicable snow slides you see in the movies? Very unlikely. In 92% of all avalanche accidents, either the victim or someone in the victim’s party triggered the avalanche. So while a tree falling in the woods is enough to displace the snow pack, it is usually the force of skiers over the snow that causes the snow to break free and start falling down the mountain.
You’ve seen the images. The brilliant puff of white snow that hail the impending avalanche. Except in most cases, that isn’t what an avalanche looks like at all. They usually travel at approximately 80mph in one dense slab. They are powerful forces of nature that take down trees, boulders, and other debris with them.
Avalanches tend to happen when there is more than one kind of snow on the ground. For example, an original layer of snow that is then covered by fresh snow. The fragile needle-like crystals connecting the new snow to the older snow can be easily broken. Even by the weight of a skier. The weight of the skier can have a ripple effect through the snow, and this can cause the upper layer of snow to collapse by as little as a millimeter. This collapse is often accompanied by an audible “whumph” of settling snow. This settling produces enough energy to shatter the fragile crystals and tends to propagate uphill, leading to a major release of the upper layer. The rest is up to gravity, friction, and the steepness of the mountain.
While cold is certainly a factor, most deaths from avalanches are caused by trauma and asphyxiation. Approximately 30% of people caught in an avalanche die from trauma. While you can sometimes swim through snow, once it comes to rest, it will be packed around the victim as hard as rock, squeezing the air out of their lungs. Victims of an avalanche who survive the trauma have a 90% chance of survival if they are rescued in 15 minutes. If they are freed in 30 minutes, the odds are down to 50%. In the event of a significant avalanche dropping more than 6 feet of snow, the odds of the victim surviving are almost zero.
I am not a skier, and I am definitely not a back country skier. After reading a lot of this research, I understand why it considered such a dangerous sport. Still, it does present some interesting “opportunities” for characters.
*evil author laugh*
As they said their final goodbyes to Claudia’s brother, no one cried.
No one said anything.
Another death. Another family suffering. Another casualty of war.
Claudia was done with war, and she would do anything to stop it.
Claudia stood beside Anton’s casket, barely registering the words being said.
Her brother had been over twenty years her senior, but he had still been her brother.
Still been her family.
And Ilyious had taken him from her.
This is my daughter’s first year in public school. As part of their curriculum, they learn about Hanukkah and Kwanzaa as well as Christmas. So, I wasn’t entirely surprised when my daughter came home and told me she wanted to celebrate Hanukkah. I figured all the days of gifts would appeal to her, even though there is only one thing on her Christmas list. (One of the benefits of having Netflix and Amazon Prime rather than cable TV!)
I explained to her that we aren’t Jewish, so we don’t celebrate Hanukkah. She’d have to wait for Christmas.
Then came the question. “What’s Jewish?”
I should’ve seen it coming, but I walked right into that trap.
I find myself trying to explain religion to a five-year-old, knowing she’s going to repeat everything back to her class and really not wanting a parent-teacher conference if it doesn’t come out of her mouth the same way it went into her ears.
As I stumbled through, my husband came to my rescue and asked our daughter if she’d like to watch an episode of My Little Ponies before dinner. As she usually only gets TV after supper, she jumped at the chance and raced into the other room to watch Ponies.
He never said I owed him one, but I totally do. Just like he was the one that explained to her when our cat died. She wasn’t yet three, but he sat her down and explained that our kitty had gotten very sick and his body stopped working. He wouldn’t ever be coming home because he’d died.
There it was. Simple as that, and she accepted it. Sort of. She would repeat his words at what seemed like random times to me, but it helped her get through it. And she never asked to see him or for him to come home.
While he saved me on this conversation, my husband did remind me that we have daughters. There’d be another “talk” they’d need to get, and that was coming from me. Not sure that’s a fair trade…