With the intention of returning home before dark, I had left a note for my parents, relieving them of their obligation to cook me a wholesome and taxing meal.  I had with me a block of cheese, two bottles of home brew, bread slices, deli turkey, mustard, oranges, and sunflower seeds.  The snow would provide refrigeration for the beer and dairy.  Again, I didn’t plan on being gone longer than a few hours.  It was too cold to brave the night in a perforated shack. 
         At first, I was afraid that I wouldn’t find the place.  However, after heeling with the running creek for barely ten minutes, I stumbled across the hut.  It sat in the snow like a brown package that had fallen off a delivery truck.  The ceiling was lower than I remembered, and the whole structure looked too meager to be anything more useful than a stepping stone for some greater dwelling.  The walls were no better than cardboard.  I did, however, trust them to not collapse unexpectedly.  Inside, there was a cheerfully small amount of snow covering the dirt-hardened floor.  And maybe it was just my optimism, but the interior felt warm.
        The hut was without tables or chairs.  I cleared snow out of a corner until there was mostly hard ground visible and sat down.  I ate an orange.  I tossed the peelings outside.  The clouds had thickened and snow was coming down lightly. 
        When I awoke, I couldn’t move my legs.  They felt glued to the floor.  My first thought was that I was frost bitten.  I was oddly toasty, even though the sun was nowhere to be seen and the open doorway had allowed entrance to some wayfaring snow drifts.   It worried me that I felt warm, because I had been told that illusory heat was a sign of hypothermia.  I tried to reach my hand out to feel my legs, but my arms too were frozen stiff.  There was pain behind my knees and around my ankles.  Something was constricting my veins.  I looked down, squinting in the gloom.  My legs were tied.
          A voice snapped my attention to the doorway.  “Welcome.”