Little Mistakes Will Ruin Your Day

Short Story by JD Clapp

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He laid stone still to ease the pain. It took a beat for him to realize he fell, another to recognize his face now rested in snow. The lake in the foreground came into focus, followed by the pine-covered mountains surrounding it.

Rolling onto his back caused his vision to narrow. Every movement hurt. He gulped frigid, thin mountain air but couldn’t seem to find his breath. Hot pain shot down his arm and across his back when he tried to move his shoulder. Black spots clouded his vision again. Broken shoulder, he thought.

His head throbbed, and blood dripped into his line of sight. With his right arm, he reached across his body and felt his face and head.  He discovered a small gash over his eyebrow and a golf ball-sized lump on his forehead. He fished a tissue from his Levi’s jacket’s pocket, tore a piece off, and pressed it into the gash. Concussion, he thought as he looked up at the heavy storm clouds above. He laid still for a while.

 I need to move, he finally thought. Adrenaline began to override his pain. The fuzzy, dull storm cloud in his head began to lift. He rolled to his right side, drew his right knee underneath his body, pushed with his good arm, and stood. The movement made him dizzy, and he choked back vomit. After steadying himself, he walked across the rocky lakeshore back toward the trail. Why am I even here? What was I looking for by the lake? He wondered.

Amid his confusion, he tried to take stock of his situation. He checked his phone—no service, 40% battery. He checked his watch: 3:35 p.m. The walk back to his car would take at least 90 minutes under normal conditions; now, it was snowing, and the well-worn sections of the trail were icy.

As he walked into a small stand of pines, he thought, I need a walking stick. After failing to find a suitable stick on the ground, he remembered his Swiss Army knife had a saw blade.

He struggled to unshoulder his daypack. Pain shot through his torso as he wriggled free of the shoulder straps. He knew putting the daypack back on would be too painful to endure. Fuck, no more mistakes! he thought. He set the pack between his feet, unzipped it, and rummaged for the knife. He left the daypack on the trail.

His hands, now cold and numb, made handling the knife difficult. I think I had gloves…What did I do with them?  After some searching, he found a decent branch. He dropped the knife several times before sawing the branch free. Winded, he took a break before stripping the smaller branches from his stick. Feeling faint, he took several deep breaths again. His damp t-shirt clung to his body.

He checked his watch again. No way that took a half-an-hour… my watch must be off, he thought. He felt like he was on ‘shrooms, somehow detached from his situation.

Making slow headway, he steadied himself with his stick on the icy sections of the trail. How far was that tricky part of the trail? Can I get there before dark?

 As he walked, the image of his mother scolding him when he did anything dangerous on family camping trips popped into his head. “Little mistakes can ruin a nice day in the woods!” she would say.  He started laughing. Is busting my shoulder a little mistake or a big one, Ma?

His concussed mind didn’t notice the snowfall pick up until the wind stiffened. Small drifts formed, making the trail hard to follow. His right hand grew frostbitten, and gripping his walking stick became difficult. Every few minutes, he stopped and blew hot breath onto his fingers, then warmed his hand in the fleece-lined pocket of his jacket before continuing. After four such stops, he cast off the stick. Stick. I don’t need no stinking stick, he cackled.

He pulled his face into the fake sheep fur lining of his coat collar. The damp warmth wafting up from inside his coat felt good on his wind-burned skin. He brushed away a blood icicle hanging from his torn eyebrow. He smelled blood and tasted of iron. Suddenly, he found his situation amusing, like he was watching it happen to someone else in a movie. Look at that poor bastard! he said aloud.

By nightfall, he had lost the trail. He grabbed his phone, clicked on the flashlight, and began to backtrack. Before his phone died, he retraced his own tracks twice. Sweat dripped from his brow. He checked his watch: 7:45 p.m. What the hell! Over an hour searching for this trail after retracing my steps twice…I still can’t find it, he said aloud. 

 After wandering in the dark for a few yards, he could make out a flat rock. I’ll just sit for a minute and regroup, he thought. He brushed the snow off the rock and sat down.

 After sitting a bit, he inexplicably grew hot rather than cold. I’m burning up. He took off his coat, made a pillow, and laid back on the rock. If only he could see stars, it would calm his nerves, but there was just enough moonlight coming through the clouds to see the snow falling. It’s still pretty. I’ll just lay back and rest for a bit, he thought.

The cold, damp snow felt good on his face. He closed his eyes and wondered if his roommate would report him missing. Then he laughed again. Shit, I didn’t even tell her where I was going. Those were his last thoughts before he drifted off.

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JD Clapp is based in San Diego, CA. His work has appeared in 101Words, Micro Fiction Mondays Magazine, Free Flash Fiction, Wrong Turn Literary, Scribes MICRO, Café Lit, and Sporting Classics Magazine, among several others. His story, One Last Drop, was a finalist in the 2023 Hemingway Shorts Literary Journal Short Story Competition.