Snowbound Threshold

The engine idles, then goes quiet. Snow absorbs the sound and keeps the record. A road coils below like a lit fuse, cars threading the valley while this one pauses at the edge, mud-flecked, roof box strapped tight, as if carrying a decision rather than luggage. Warm windows glow from the cabins behind it, their timber lines clean against the dusk, a held breath between shelter and departure. In the foreground, the question cuts through the drifts—Where Vojta?—letters pressed by hand, already softening at the edges. Someone knelt here long enough for cold to burn through gloves. Someone wanted the message to sit at the threshold where boots hesitate and tires pivot. The scene splits its attention: comfort and movement, light and distance, insistence and silence. No figures step forward to answer, only tracks merging and fading. Was this a final waypoint or an abandoned post? The investigation notes the coordinates, the timing, the snow melt around the letters. Vojta does not appear. He remains unaccounted for.