On the Edge

Tamar Vidra

Let’s leave before dark, He said, But we found ourselves surrounded by something other than darkness For even the light beams of our car could not cut against the world Or reveal the mountain ridges On which our road is paved

It was like the ones we drove on earlier that day That winded up to the top of the mountain Roads that looked like the ridges Concavities of swirled icing that reaches the summit of a cupcake

And now, Surrounded in a paroxysm of nature Of night and snow that beat against the dashboard of our car Where streaks of ice formed on windows As if someone or something had clawed at this SUV We could not see anything but the void

We were suspended in a stasis of terror

There was no place where fear could not be found Not in the eerie hum of the radio, a duet of static and Hamilton Not in the sharp skidding of our tires against the thatched ground Not in my father’s tense hands, which gripped the steering wheel Not even in the red blinking lights of the car in front of us

My mother’s wheezing breaths Became our metronome Each pant contained a yell within a whisper