Snowcapped
flash fiction
She stood on the precipice of the falls and the water peeled back in white riffles at her Achilles tendons. People on the bank were screaming at her to come carefully, carefully back. The water below, after the spill-pool, proceeded through a rocky cut, an ancient trough. Far away, gray mountains with snow on top. She thought how they’d be called ‘snowcapped.’ But the snow reminded her of woolen shawls. Undyed, knitted straight from the sheep’s back. The mountains were the grandmothers of the world. The thundering water made the sound of their voices. She looked to the bank again. Somebody’d found a rope, a climbing rope, and he was coiling it in long loops, getting ready to sling it out to her.