Snow White

            Isabel drove through the night with the snow falling like powdered sugar through a colander. The radio was playing something the sounded like Silent Night, but with the static it sounded like a ghost trying to talk its way through to the other side. Isabel was bundled up, red knit scarf wrapped around her face and a ratty green wool jacket buttoned all the way up to her neck and down to her knees. Her brown wool stockings and brown knee high boots doing their best to keep her legs warm since she didn’t think she would need to wrap her legs in a blanket as she drove. She thought the heater would have lasted a little longer than half a mile on her three mile drive.

            Her brother had gotten out of prison and had made Christmas quite the to-do once he had walked into the door of their mom’s cottage. It was always rare when he was around, and when he was it was like spotting Waldo after looking for twenty god damned minutes. Something special had to be done to mark the occasion and it was always something big. Of course Isabel was pissed about this. She was the good one, she thought she should get some freaking praise. But all she got was a, ‘you two broke up again?! God, Issie! Get your shit together and just marry him! No one else is gonna live with your bull crap.”

            Even her brother laughed at Isabel’s misfortune. It wasn’t like it happened all the time. And it’s not like it was always the same guy, just always the same ending. Her mom and brother didn’t even bother asking who she was dating, just told her to marry the guy before he figured out she was a loser. And she felt like a loser too.

            Isabel had been working five years at a thrift store in Winnemucca and couldn’t seem to find a job anywhere else. She even looked out of the city and out of the state and couldn’t find shit to do. She loved her job, she did, but she didn’t love the looks people gave her and the things people said about her. It wasn’t all bad stuff, just stuff that made you feel down and want more out of life. Things that made you think that you could be doing something greater if the right chance came along.

            Driving through the snow, Isabel wondered if it would be a good idea to even go back home. She could just drive for miles until she ran out of gas and live on the road. She could go on an adventure and see what life could give her. And as she zoned out, dreaming of being a land pirate and driving through the forty-eight states, a tall white beast raced in front of her car and was hit. Isabel’s head smashed against the steering wheel and her foot kicked for the break and her car flew up and over the creature. Her brown’s meeting its blue’s for a millisecond before the car landed on its back and her head cracked against the ceiling of the car.

            Two days went by before anyone came across Isabel’s car. The road she had taken was one that normal people would never take during a snow storm if they valued their lives. The snow covered most of the car, covering the tracks that the creature had left when it carried the ragdoll of a woman back to its den. The police, of course, after looking at the amount of blood in the car and seeing the way the door was ripped open declared that Isabel had died from a wild animal attack. But they won’t know the truth. They won’t know that she is now something greater.