Ollie had been watching the mountain for a long time, long enough for the cold to gently find its way into his boots and gloves and for the air around him to smell clean and sharp, the way it does when you are far away from busy towns and cities.

The snow lay thick and smooth, resting where it had settled, layer upon layer, as though the mountain had been carefully collecting it all winter and was holding onto  it and keeping in its place.

Ollie liked how still it was up here in the mountains.

He noticed though, after a while, that stillness doesn’t always mean nothing is happening, even in stillness movement is always happening somewhere nearby.

Somewhere high above him, so far away he could barely see it, the snow had started to move, not suddenly and not angrily, but very slowly at first, slipping and sliding and folding over itself as though it had finally decided it was ready to travel down the side of the mountain.

Ollie watched as the avalanche made its way quickly down the mountain, not chasing him though, it was just following the path the mountain had offered, carrying snow from one place to another until it came to rest again, lower down, in the valley.

When it was over, the mountain looked much the same as it did before, only it felt different in a way that made everything more calm and less frightening, as if it had quietly rearranged itself, to make itself feel more comfortable.

Ollie stayed where he was, breathing in the cold air, noticing how the silence had returned, and how the snow had now settled, and how nothing had seemed to have happened.

“Avalanche,” he whispered, tasting the word as he said it.

He understood then that an avalanche isn’t the mountain breaking up, or the snow being purposely dangerous, but simply the mountain letting the snow move when it was ready, changing itself without permission from others, and doing so in its own time and at its own speed.

Ollie smiled, he zipped up his coat just a little bit tighter than before, and carried on walking, leaving the mountain to carry on  its quiet work, feeling glad that some things in the world are allowed to change slowly, and exactly when they need to.

And with that in mind, Ollie carried on, leaving nature to do what it had always done.