Author’s note – this is another brief piece I’ve written in my attempt to do a little creative writing every day in 2016.  

“Great, now my goddamned phone is dead, ” Harold growled, throwing it down and splintering the screen. His temper had gotten on my last nerve three nerves ago, but I was the only one willing to deal with him, so I hung back and let the others get ahead of us before I said anything.

“What the fuck do you want man?” I yelled, “it’s not like we can go  home to charge it, now can we? Even if we could, who the hell would we call? There’s no one left!”

“Who asked you?”

“Nobody,” I retorted, “but since you won’t deign to stay with us,and you’re yelling like a crazy fool, I thought I’d better come check on you to make sure you hadn’t been attacked by a bear or something.”

“Would you care if I had been?

I had nothing to say. The blizzard raged around us in violent silence, blurring my vision as Harold began to cry and scrubbed at his face with an ice-encrusted mitten. The cruel part of me thought we’d be better off without his attitude, but as tears froze on his face I knew I couldn’t wish any ill will on him. I watched as the group continued on without us; we couldn’t survive just the two of us, and I was certainly not going to die because Harold was being an ass.  We both just had to get over it and move on. Picking up his phone, I half-heartedly wiped it against my coat and handed it back to him.

“Come on,” I relented. “Let’s catch up with everyone and figure out where we’re going to spend the night. It’ll be alright, I promise.”