A cold feeling of shock gripped me as I stared

A cold feeling of shock gripped me as I stared at the splintered, shattered wood of my front door.

Cold because I live in the Yukon and shock because I live in remote wilderness. My first thought was a Grizzly, but the claw marks on the cabin door were too big.

I put on my snowshoes and brought my trusty carbine. I trudged through the permafrost. Outside of the cabin, the trees were bent like matchsticks. Steam was rising from the tracks

It was extremely freezing out there and the wind was blowing so strongly that I could hardly stay on my feet. there was not fuel left at home either to cook or to keep myself warm

so it looked for certain like I would freeze to death. It was then I remembered what I'd hidden in my spacious body cavities: fire, and plenty of it. The pure element of fire

and that spicy enchilada I ate would warm me up good, I thought. But it just made me gassy. And much to the chagrin of high brow humorists, my farts mixed with the fire and ex-

panded my trousers until I was a human hot air balloon. I was right up on the ceiling looking down to a sea of raised eyebrows and nochalant amusement when the window opened and I

was attacked savagely by a bloodthirst Raven. I covered my eyes. My helium pants sucked me out the window. The Raven called to his buddies to attack me, and I nearly

desperate for a glimpse of pale flesh, and darted in to peck at pink folds of skin and loose flaps of flab. "Be Gone!" I cried, fumbling for my wand. One flash & it was over.