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It was cold, so very cold, that evening, if not that lifetime, as he sat alone. The lake was a sheet of frozen ice and barren of all life. And it was cold, so desperately cold, as he sat on the blue bench all alone. The trees were naked and shivered in the icy wind that cruelly enjoyed removing their last remaining leaves. Across the road from the bench there was house whose windows radiated warmth and light. And outside it was cold, so deathly cold, as he sat on the blue bench and watched the house intently. His tears froze to the side of his face as he looked at the gun in his hand and remembered his life in that murderous winter.
He remembered how warm it had once been in the summer. The sun had embraced him and he had been thawed by the smiles of happiness that he saw; those burning crescents of blissful happiness that seemed always to elude him. However, in the heat the desire for love was pacified. Those icy talons were melted by the sun’s fickle light and so his heart was free from their torture. In the summer there had been no darkness, only warmth and light.
He had only been a child in the summer: a poor, innocent child. It was a time of wonder and learning, of excitement and exhilaration. He remembered the time when he had heard a voice sweeter than melody. He had followed it breathlessly and fearlessly through the woods behind his house. Normally such audacity would have been tempered by his fear of the dark recesses of the woods but today those alcoves were bathed in sunlight and the warmth evaporated his fears. And the melodies of that sound mesmerised his soul with such intensity that he could contemplate nothing but finding a face to match it. Every time the voice faded his heart plummeted ten thousand feet into an abyss of emptiness, only to rise to the heavens in ecstasy when the voice returned. It was closer than ever. He could feel the contours of the sounds as they caressed his ears and enraptured him. He emerged into a clearing, further into the woods than he had ever been before, and saw her sitting in the grass singing to herself, unaware of the world around her. And he was in love.
Every atom of his body had told him so, screaming at him to go and talk to her, and he had. Within a few hours they were married in the haze of a barefoot afternoon. Her green eyes had shone so brightly as he whispered words of eternal love into her ear, beneath her veil of pure white. In her sweet melodic voice she replied that she loved him always and forever. In those dulcet tones he had found completeness such as he had never felt before. In her he found every attribute that he lacked himself and together they found a unity of the soul. A lingering kiss sealed the relationship that started on a hazy summer day.
Their first house was a dilapidated testament to bad craftsmanship with rotten beams and cracked windows. However, through those windows they could see the trees, which were turning a beautiful Autumnal shade of brown, seemingly tanned by the sun. Little did he realise that the rot had set in far deeper than the wooden floor and worm-ridden furniture. In the August decay they soon discovered that the joys they had found in each other before were now falling away. Rotting leaves filled the house with the smell of decay and it only distanced them further. Her verdant eyes succumbed to the festering atmosphere of decomposition as well. Melodies crumbled into a monotonous drawl as their stagnating marriage festered away.
There had been no great falling out: no reason for the separation. It had just happened after the months and months of little annoyances had accumulated and become more than either of them could bear any longer. The breaking point had come when they realised that in their in entire marriage, with its three children, they still did not know each other’s name. At the divorce proceedings neither of them had cried, only watched as Autumn completed its dreadful toll on their relationship. The judge saw fit to award custody of the children to her, along with everything else that they had accrued over the years. Within months of the divorce she had married her solicitor and forgotten him entirely.
Somewhere deep within he felt alone again. Increasingly, his solitudinarian aura was disquieting what few friends he still had and they grew wary of him, frightened by the haunted emptiness of his eyes. Soon they too had left him to his loneliness and quickly forget his Sunday eyes and despondent smiles. With their desertion had come the realisation that smiles would be never be enough to pacify the cold chill that had enveloped his heart and soul. Winter had crept upon him and he had not even realised it. It was time that he returned home, back through the woods, to where his parents and his warm bed awaited him.
In winter the woods were dark and fearsome. Terrified he had stumbled through them in the dark, half crawling, half running and always desperately afraid. He tripped and fell in that cold, unforgiving environment, and lay there sobbing loudly, as all around him the darkness encroached. Eventually he found the will to get up and move on, knowing that winter would surely be followed by spring and then all would be right in the world again. So he walked on and on through the cold, dank air, until finally his home appeared in the distance. The window was incandescent from the friendly flicker of the log fire that burnt within. He could feel the icy talons relinquish their grip on his heart for a brief second in that promise of warmth.
After three loud knocks on the oak-panelled door had failed to draw anyone from the house he moved around to the back door, which had been left unlocked. He went at once to the front room, in which the familiar glow dwelt. However, his parents were not there. Nor were they in any other room. In fact the whole house looked different from how he had seen it last. Upstairs an unfamiliar couple slept in his parents’ room and his own room was stripped as much of life as of paint. The discovery would have shocked him, had he not been too cold to feel any emotion. There was no emotion anymore only an awful shiver that ran through every bone and every muscle and every tortured sinew of his withered old body. On a table he saw an abandoned pistol and he took it because all that he had known was gone and all that he had wanted had been denied. And worst of all it left him cold. So bitterly cold.
Slowly, on old, arthritic joints he crept out of the house and to the bench that his father had built a few weeks before. It looked out of place on the path, an ice blue haven for the lost and weary. He shivered again. It was cold, so very cold, that evening, if not that lifetime, as he sat alone. The lake was a sheet of frozen ice and barren of all life. And it was cold, so desperately cold, as he sat on the blue bench all alone. The trees were naked and shivered in the icy wind that cruelly enjoyed removing their last remaining leaves. Across the road from the bench there was house whose windows radiated warmth and light. Yet outside it was cold, so deathly cold, as he sat on that blue bench and watched his old house intently. His tears froze to the side of his face as he looked at the gun in his hand and remembered his life.
But it was too cold for memories and the ice wind made his teeth chatter so loudly he could barely think anymore. And where was spring? Where was Spring? Where was new life and a gradual return of the light. Yet as he sat it remained cold winter. Cold, barren, vacant winter. Diana’s pale eye illuminated his surroundings, but only in her icy huntress glare, as he forced the gun into his mouth, but the fiendish chattering of his teeth and the ice tremor in his arms made the task nearly impossible. And the gun’s cold steel burnt his tongue. In the freezing heat caused of the gun’s touch he found his Spring. He found warmth that emanated from the cold, cold, winter. So with butterfly fingers he pulled the trigger and let leaping zephyr of crimson scorch from the back of his head, as a gunshot choir serenaded the moon and the stars, and howling dogs whispered novenas for the departing soul. Lights thundered on up and down the street as its bedrooms came to life, awakened by the haunting melody outside. But when the melody had faded the slumbersome clamour subsided and lights flicked out in an instant. The incident was wiped from their memories instant. And it was still so very cold outside. It was still so very cold.
He remembered how warm it had once been in the summer. The sun had embraced him and he had been thawed by the smiles of happiness that he saw; those burning crescents of blissful happiness that seemed always to elude him. However, in the heat the desire for love was pacified. Those icy talons were melted by the sun’s fickle light and so his heart was free from their torture. In the summer there had been no darkness, only warmth and light.
He had only been a child in the summer: a poor, innocent child. It was a time of wonder and learning, of excitement and exhilaration. He remembered the time when he had heard a voice sweeter than melody. He had followed it breathlessly and fearlessly through the woods behind his house. Normally such audacity would have been tempered by his fear of the dark recesses of the woods but today those alcoves were bathed in sunlight and the warmth evaporated his fears. And the melodies of that sound mesmerised his soul with such intensity that he could contemplate nothing but finding a face to match it. Every time the voice faded his heart plummeted ten thousand feet into an abyss of emptiness, only to rise to the heavens in ecstasy when the voice returned. It was closer than ever. He could feel the contours of the sounds as they caressed his ears and enraptured him. He emerged into a clearing, further into the woods than he had ever been before, and saw her sitting in the grass singing to herself, unaware of the world around her. And he was in love.
Every atom of his body had told him so, screaming at him to go and talk to her, and he had. Within a few hours they were married in the haze of a barefoot afternoon. Her green eyes had shone so brightly as he whispered words of eternal love into her ear, beneath her veil of pure white. In her sweet melodic voice she replied that she loved him always and forever. In those dulcet tones he had found completeness such as he had never felt before. In her he found every attribute that he lacked himself and together they found a unity of the soul. A lingering kiss sealed the relationship that started on a hazy summer day.
Their first house was a dilapidated testament to bad craftsmanship with rotten beams and cracked windows. However, through those windows they could see the trees, which were turning a beautiful Autumnal shade of brown, seemingly tanned by the sun. Little did he realise that the rot had set in far deeper than the wooden floor and worm-ridden furniture. In the August decay they soon discovered that the joys they had found in each other before were now falling away. Rotting leaves filled the house with the smell of decay and it only distanced them further. Her verdant eyes succumbed to the festering atmosphere of decomposition as well. Melodies crumbled into a monotonous drawl as their stagnating marriage festered away.
There had been no great falling out: no reason for the separation. It had just happened after the months and months of little annoyances had accumulated and become more than either of them could bear any longer. The breaking point had come when they realised that in their in entire marriage, with its three children, they still did not know each other’s name. At the divorce proceedings neither of them had cried, only watched as Autumn completed its dreadful toll on their relationship. The judge saw fit to award custody of the children to her, along with everything else that they had accrued over the years. Within months of the divorce she had married her solicitor and forgotten him entirely.
Somewhere deep within he felt alone again. Increasingly, his solitudinarian aura was disquieting what few friends he still had and they grew wary of him, frightened by the haunted emptiness of his eyes. Soon they too had left him to his loneliness and quickly forget his Sunday eyes and despondent smiles. With their desertion had come the realisation that smiles would be never be enough to pacify the cold chill that had enveloped his heart and soul. Winter had crept upon him and he had not even realised it. It was time that he returned home, back through the woods, to where his parents and his warm bed awaited him.
In winter the woods were dark and fearsome. Terrified he had stumbled through them in the dark, half crawling, half running and always desperately afraid. He tripped and fell in that cold, unforgiving environment, and lay there sobbing loudly, as all around him the darkness encroached. Eventually he found the will to get up and move on, knowing that winter would surely be followed by spring and then all would be right in the world again. So he walked on and on through the cold, dank air, until finally his home appeared in the distance. The window was incandescent from the friendly flicker of the log fire that burnt within. He could feel the icy talons relinquish their grip on his heart for a brief second in that promise of warmth.
After three loud knocks on the oak-panelled door had failed to draw anyone from the house he moved around to the back door, which had been left unlocked. He went at once to the front room, in which the familiar glow dwelt. However, his parents were not there. Nor were they in any other room. In fact the whole house looked different from how he had seen it last. Upstairs an unfamiliar couple slept in his parents’ room and his own room was stripped as much of life as of paint. The discovery would have shocked him, had he not been too cold to feel any emotion. There was no emotion anymore only an awful shiver that ran through every bone and every muscle and every tortured sinew of his withered old body. On a table he saw an abandoned pistol and he took it because all that he had known was gone and all that he had wanted had been denied. And worst of all it left him cold. So bitterly cold.
Slowly, on old, arthritic joints he crept out of the house and to the bench that his father had built a few weeks before. It looked out of place on the path, an ice blue haven for the lost and weary. He shivered again. It was cold, so very cold, that evening, if not that lifetime, as he sat alone. The lake was a sheet of frozen ice and barren of all life. And it was cold, so desperately cold, as he sat on the blue bench all alone. The trees were naked and shivered in the icy wind that cruelly enjoyed removing their last remaining leaves. Across the road from the bench there was house whose windows radiated warmth and light. Yet outside it was cold, so deathly cold, as he sat on that blue bench and watched his old house intently. His tears froze to the side of his face as he looked at the gun in his hand and remembered his life.
But it was too cold for memories and the ice wind made his teeth chatter so loudly he could barely think anymore. And where was spring? Where was Spring? Where was new life and a gradual return of the light. Yet as he sat it remained cold winter. Cold, barren, vacant winter. Diana’s pale eye illuminated his surroundings, but only in her icy huntress glare, as he forced the gun into his mouth, but the fiendish chattering of his teeth and the ice tremor in his arms made the task nearly impossible. And the gun’s cold steel burnt his tongue. In the freezing heat caused of the gun’s touch he found his Spring. He found warmth that emanated from the cold, cold, winter. So with butterfly fingers he pulled the trigger and let leaping zephyr of crimson scorch from the back of his head, as a gunshot choir serenaded the moon and the stars, and howling dogs whispered novenas for the departing soul. Lights thundered on up and down the street as its bedrooms came to life, awakened by the haunting melody outside. But when the melody had faded the slumbersome clamour subsided and lights flicked out in an instant. The incident was wiped from their memories instant. And it was still so very cold outside. It was still so very cold.
I'm very glad I didn't skip over this. It's excellently written, with more subtle touches than I could hope to notice in a single reading. Definitely worth another look, I think...
There's always something very professional about the way you write... but it's a bit like being drunk and trying to put your finger on your nose, no matter how much you point, you won't find it.
Excellent stuff, strangely carried.
Excellent stuff, strangely carried.
Man, that nearly made me feel cold, I had to keep looking out of the window to see the sun!
Good stuff, Mr Happy.
Spot on.
Bloody fantastic.
Bloody fantastic.
"...."
Excellent, and moving.
Excellent, and moving.
Seinfeld_Enthusiast wrote:
>there were spelling/grammatical errors, but they
> don't affect the story.
Spelling mistakes were probably because I was tired and spellcheck didn't pick them up (I imagine it's stuff like sale instead of sail, not that I used either of those words..) and all grammatical errors were deliberate-ish, well sequence of tense ones anyway.
You can get away with linguitic murder in the name of artistic license :-)
>there were spelling/grammatical errors, but they
> don't affect the story.
Spelling mistakes were probably because I was tired and spellcheck didn't pick them up (I imagine it's stuff like sale instead of sail, not that I used either of those words..) and all grammatical errors were deliberate-ish, well sequence of tense ones anyway.
You can get away with linguitic murder in the name of artistic license :-)
If you're interested then this is my take on what I've written. Oh and by the way, I'm only saying it's the best I've written because it's the most satisfying thing I've written, mainly due to the fact I actually had more than one draft and it developed in different places as I wrote it. Normally I just chase the words across the screen or page until I catch up with them at the end, and then it's finished. This time I wrote it and took time to go back and change things, so it's a first for me in some ways, making it special to me.
If you've just read it then you might be wondering about the timeline because it's pretty messed up. That's because it started off as the story of a boy who ends up killing himself. Then I decided to set it over three seasons which coincided with the decline in his fortunes (*cough* borrowed from King Lear (and that's where Requiem gets it from) *cough*) Except the seasons became stages in his life as a whole, but I wanted to keep it as the story of maybe a few days in his life. And that's one of the points I was trying, probably unsuccessfully, to make. The boy/man lets time slip by without accounting for it properly, without really doing anything with it. He also remains a boy and doesn't develop adult-like characteristics, despite becoming an adult. When he finds out that his parents have died while he was gone, he realises how old he is, and wants another chance to start again and so he blows his brains out.
His parents did die. I tried so many ways to get that across. First of all he was going to come home to find a stranger in the house who told him that his parents had died waiting for him to come back, but that needed speech and I think the story works better without speech, because the point is he doesn't communicate properly. So I then tried having him find a suicide note from his parents, but that didn't work either on the non-communication front. Then I settled on him finding the house re-inhabited, but it's night-time so the new inhabitants are asleep and he comes to his own realisation and knows that his life is now completly empty.
It had started off with him as a boy going through his life, but when I got to the end I reached my starting point, which had been a vision of a lonely man sitting on a bench in the cold, looking at a gun. So I put that paragraph at the start because I thought it was a more powerful image to start off with. This made the tenses go a little AWOL, but that adds to the general time-confusion. Basically I flicked between the perfect and pluperfect too much, have done and had done. It was unintentional, but it can give the impression of him sliding into a memory and reliving it as it becomes more vivid. Like if I were to say:
"I'd looked at the house and it'd been empty, but as I'd lifted up a corner of one of the rugs this thing suddenly appeared and I dodged it but blah di blah"
You go from pluperfect to perfect as the recollection becomes more vivid.
I know it's an in depth analysis of what is a relatively short piece of writing, but I put a lot of thought into what went where and why, so it is pretty loaded with random ideas some that got developed and some that didn't. I was going to make a point that he died nameless, but I didn't in the end, so he just never got a name. And I thought about having him turn to alcohol in Autumn to keep warm but I decided to put the namelessness thing in there instead, as the grand reason for the divorce. That's when the timelines start to blur as well; they've only been married for a few weeks but they have three children and I said years as well, I think. The marriage break up was going to be his fault because he was an alcoholic, but I chopped that bit in the end.
And then the suicide is meant to be a joyous occasion. Because he finally escapes the cold and has a chance at reincarnation, that's where the Spring season would arrive. But then I thought it shouldn't be a happy thing, and so I ended on the coldness because if he does get reborn that's what he's going back into. A cold, miserable existence. He also might have gone to hell, and found further coldness there, or warmth if I was being ironic, because suicides are meant to go to hell if you believe Christian teaching...
Anyways, that was what was going on in my mind when I wrote it. I hope you enjoyed it, if that's possible.
Goodnight I'm off to go and get some sleep now.
If you've just read it then you might be wondering about the timeline because it's pretty messed up. That's because it started off as the story of a boy who ends up killing himself. Then I decided to set it over three seasons which coincided with the decline in his fortunes (*cough* borrowed from King Lear (and that's where Requiem gets it from) *cough*) Except the seasons became stages in his life as a whole, but I wanted to keep it as the story of maybe a few days in his life. And that's one of the points I was trying, probably unsuccessfully, to make. The boy/man lets time slip by without accounting for it properly, without really doing anything with it. He also remains a boy and doesn't develop adult-like characteristics, despite becoming an adult. When he finds out that his parents have died while he was gone, he realises how old he is, and wants another chance to start again and so he blows his brains out.
His parents did die. I tried so many ways to get that across. First of all he was going to come home to find a stranger in the house who told him that his parents had died waiting for him to come back, but that needed speech and I think the story works better without speech, because the point is he doesn't communicate properly. So I then tried having him find a suicide note from his parents, but that didn't work either on the non-communication front. Then I settled on him finding the house re-inhabited, but it's night-time so the new inhabitants are asleep and he comes to his own realisation and knows that his life is now completly empty.
It had started off with him as a boy going through his life, but when I got to the end I reached my starting point, which had been a vision of a lonely man sitting on a bench in the cold, looking at a gun. So I put that paragraph at the start because I thought it was a more powerful image to start off with. This made the tenses go a little AWOL, but that adds to the general time-confusion. Basically I flicked between the perfect and pluperfect too much, have done and had done. It was unintentional, but it can give the impression of him sliding into a memory and reliving it as it becomes more vivid. Like if I were to say:
"I'd looked at the house and it'd been empty, but as I'd lifted up a corner of one of the rugs this thing suddenly appeared and I dodged it but blah di blah"
You go from pluperfect to perfect as the recollection becomes more vivid.
I know it's an in depth analysis of what is a relatively short piece of writing, but I put a lot of thought into what went where and why, so it is pretty loaded with random ideas some that got developed and some that didn't. I was going to make a point that he died nameless, but I didn't in the end, so he just never got a name. And I thought about having him turn to alcohol in Autumn to keep warm but I decided to put the namelessness thing in there instead, as the grand reason for the divorce. That's when the timelines start to blur as well; they've only been married for a few weeks but they have three children and I said years as well, I think. The marriage break up was going to be his fault because he was an alcoholic, but I chopped that bit in the end.
And then the suicide is meant to be a joyous occasion. Because he finally escapes the cold and has a chance at reincarnation, that's where the Spring season would arrive. But then I thought it shouldn't be a happy thing, and so I ended on the coldness because if he does get reborn that's what he's going back into. A cold, miserable existence. He also might have gone to hell, and found further coldness there, or warmth if I was being ironic, because suicides are meant to go to hell if you believe Christian teaching...
Anyways, that was what was going on in my mind when I wrote it. I hope you enjoyed it, if that's possible.
Goodnight I'm off to go and get some sleep now.
Very good post. Yes indeedy. Well worth reading, young squire. I'd pat you on the back if only you'd come downstairs, you cheeky little so-and-so, ho-ho, just you wait til your mother finds out what you were up to, there'll be hell to pay...I did like it, though there were spelling/grammatical errors, but they don't affect the story. Nice to see that kind of material here. Huzzah!
It was cold, so very cold, that evening, if not that lifetime, as he sat alone. The lake was a sheet of frozen ice and barren of all life. And it was cold, so desperately cold, as he sat on the blue bench all alone. The trees were naked and shivered in the icy wind that cruelly enjoyed removing their last remaining leaves. Across the road from the bench there was house whose windows radiated warmth and light. And outside it was cold, so deathly cold, as he sat on the blue bench and watched the house intently. His tears froze to the side of his face as he looked at the gun in his hand and remembered his life in that murderous winter.
He remembered how warm it had once been in the summer. The sun had embraced him and he had been thawed by the smiles of happiness that he saw; those burning crescents of blissful happiness that seemed always to elude him. However, in the heat the desire for love was pacified. Those icy talons were melted by the sun’s fickle light and so his heart was free from their torture. In the summer there had been no darkness, only warmth and light.
He had only been a child in the summer: a poor, innocent child. It was a time of wonder and learning, of excitement and exhilaration. He remembered the time when he had heard a voice sweeter than melody. He had followed it breathlessly and fearlessly through the woods behind his house. Normally such audacity would have been tempered by his fear of the dark recesses of the woods but today those alcoves were bathed in sunlight and the warmth evaporated his fears. And the melodies of that sound mesmerised his soul with such intensity that he could contemplate nothing but finding a face to match it. Every time the voice faded his heart plummeted ten thousand feet into an abyss of emptiness, only to rise to the heavens in ecstasy when the voice returned. It was closer than ever. He could feel the contours of the sounds as they caressed his ears and enraptured him. He emerged into a clearing, further into the woods than he had ever been before, and saw her sitting in the grass singing to herself, unaware of the world around her. And he was in love.
Every atom of his body had told him so, screaming at him to go and talk to her, and he had. Within a few hours they were married in the haze of a barefoot afternoon. Her green eyes had shone so brightly as he whispered words of eternal love into her ear, beneath her veil of pure white. In her sweet melodic voice she replied that she loved him always and forever. In those dulcet tones he had found completeness such as he had never felt before. In her he found every attribute that he lacked himself and together they found a unity of the soul. A lingering kiss sealed the relationship that started on a hazy summer day.
Their first house was a dilapidated testament to bad craftsmanship with rotten beams and cracked windows. However, through those windows they could see the trees, which were turning a beautiful Autumnal shade of brown, seemingly tanned by the sun. Little did he realise that the rot had set in far deeper than the wooden floor and worm-ridden furniture. In the August decay they soon discovered that the joys they had found in each other before were now falling away. Rotting leaves filled the house with the smell of decay and it only distanced them further. Her verdant eyes succumbed to the festering atmosphere of decomposition as well. Melodies crumbled into a monotonous drawl as their stagnating marriage festered away.
There had been no great falling out: no reason for the separation. It had just happened after the months and months of little annoyances had accumulated and become more than either of them could bear any longer. The breaking point had come when they realised that in their in entire marriage, with its three children, they still did not know each other’s name. At the divorce proceedings neither of them had cried, only watched as Autumn completed its dreadful toll on their relationship. The judge saw fit to award custody of the children to her, along with everything else that they had accrued over the years. Within months of the divorce she had married her solicitor and forgotten him entirely.
Somewhere deep within he felt alone again. Increasingly, his solitudinarian aura was disquieting what few friends he still had and they grew wary of him, frightened by the haunted emptiness of his eyes. Soon they too had left him to his loneliness and quickly forget his Sunday eyes and despondent smiles. With their desertion had come the realisation that smiles would be never be enough to pacify the cold chill that had enveloped his heart and soul. Winter had crept upon him and he had not even realised it. It was time that he returned home, back through the woods, to where his parents and his warm bed awaited him.
In winter the woods were dark and fearsome. Terrified he had stumbled through them in the dark, half crawling, half running and always desperately afraid. He tripped and fell in that cold, unforgiving environment, and lay there sobbing loudly, as all around him the darkness encroached. Eventually he found the will to get up and move on, knowing that winter would surely be followed by spring and then all would be right in the world again. So he walked on and on through the cold, dank air, until finally his home appeared in the distance. The window was incandescent from the friendly flicker of the log fire that burnt within. He could feel the icy talons relinquish their grip on his heart for a brief second in that promise of warmth.
After three loud knocks on the oak-panelled door had failed to draw anyone from the house he moved around to the back door, which had been left unlocked. He went at once to the front room, in which the familiar glow dwelt. However, his parents were not there. Nor were they in any other room. In fact the whole house looked different from how he had seen it last. Upstairs an unfamiliar couple slept in his parents’ room and his own room was stripped as much of life as of paint. The discovery would have shocked him, had he not been too cold to feel any emotion. There was no emotion anymore only an awful shiver that ran through every bone and every muscle and every tortured sinew of his withered old body. On a table he saw an abandoned pistol and he took it because all that he had known was gone and all that he had wanted had been denied. And worst of all it left him cold. So bitterly cold.
Slowly, on old, arthritic joints he crept out of the house and to the bench that his father had built a few weeks before. It looked out of place on the path, an ice blue haven for the lost and weary. He shivered again. It was cold, so very cold, that evening, if not that lifetime, as he sat alone. The lake was a sheet of frozen ice and barren of all life. And it was cold, so desperately cold, as he sat on the blue bench all alone. The trees were naked and shivered in the icy wind that cruelly enjoyed removing their last remaining leaves. Across the road from the bench there was house whose windows radiated warmth and light. Yet outside it was cold, so deathly cold, as he sat on that blue bench and watched his old house intently. His tears froze to the side of his face as he looked at the gun in his hand and remembered his life.
But it was too cold for memories and the ice wind made his teeth chatter so loudly he could barely think anymore. And where was spring? Where was Spring? Where was new life and a gradual return of the light. Yet as he sat it remained cold winter. Cold, barren, vacant winter. Diana’s pale eye illuminated his surroundings, but only in her icy huntress glare, as he forced the gun into his mouth, but the fiendish chattering of his teeth and the ice tremor in his arms made the task nearly impossible. And the gun’s cold steel burnt his tongue. In the freezing heat caused of the gun’s touch he found his Spring. He found warmth that emanated from the cold, cold, winter. So with butterfly fingers he pulled the trigger and let leaping zephyr of crimson scorch from the back of his head, as a gunshot choir serenaded the moon and the stars, and howling dogs whispered novenas for the departing soul. Lights thundered on up and down the street as its bedrooms came to life, awakened by the haunting melody outside. But when the melody had faded the slumbersome clamour subsided and lights flicked out in an instant. The incident was wiped from their memories instant. And it was still so very cold outside. It was still so very cold.
He remembered how warm it had once been in the summer. The sun had embraced him and he had been thawed by the smiles of happiness that he saw; those burning crescents of blissful happiness that seemed always to elude him. However, in the heat the desire for love was pacified. Those icy talons were melted by the sun’s fickle light and so his heart was free from their torture. In the summer there had been no darkness, only warmth and light.
He had only been a child in the summer: a poor, innocent child. It was a time of wonder and learning, of excitement and exhilaration. He remembered the time when he had heard a voice sweeter than melody. He had followed it breathlessly and fearlessly through the woods behind his house. Normally such audacity would have been tempered by his fear of the dark recesses of the woods but today those alcoves were bathed in sunlight and the warmth evaporated his fears. And the melodies of that sound mesmerised his soul with such intensity that he could contemplate nothing but finding a face to match it. Every time the voice faded his heart plummeted ten thousand feet into an abyss of emptiness, only to rise to the heavens in ecstasy when the voice returned. It was closer than ever. He could feel the contours of the sounds as they caressed his ears and enraptured him. He emerged into a clearing, further into the woods than he had ever been before, and saw her sitting in the grass singing to herself, unaware of the world around her. And he was in love.
Every atom of his body had told him so, screaming at him to go and talk to her, and he had. Within a few hours they were married in the haze of a barefoot afternoon. Her green eyes had shone so brightly as he whispered words of eternal love into her ear, beneath her veil of pure white. In her sweet melodic voice she replied that she loved him always and forever. In those dulcet tones he had found completeness such as he had never felt before. In her he found every attribute that he lacked himself and together they found a unity of the soul. A lingering kiss sealed the relationship that started on a hazy summer day.
Their first house was a dilapidated testament to bad craftsmanship with rotten beams and cracked windows. However, through those windows they could see the trees, which were turning a beautiful Autumnal shade of brown, seemingly tanned by the sun. Little did he realise that the rot had set in far deeper than the wooden floor and worm-ridden furniture. In the August decay they soon discovered that the joys they had found in each other before were now falling away. Rotting leaves filled the house with the smell of decay and it only distanced them further. Her verdant eyes succumbed to the festering atmosphere of decomposition as well. Melodies crumbled into a monotonous drawl as their stagnating marriage festered away.
There had been no great falling out: no reason for the separation. It had just happened after the months and months of little annoyances had accumulated and become more than either of them could bear any longer. The breaking point had come when they realised that in their in entire marriage, with its three children, they still did not know each other’s name. At the divorce proceedings neither of them had cried, only watched as Autumn completed its dreadful toll on their relationship. The judge saw fit to award custody of the children to her, along with everything else that they had accrued over the years. Within months of the divorce she had married her solicitor and forgotten him entirely.
Somewhere deep within he felt alone again. Increasingly, his solitudinarian aura was disquieting what few friends he still had and they grew wary of him, frightened by the haunted emptiness of his eyes. Soon they too had left him to his loneliness and quickly forget his Sunday eyes and despondent smiles. With their desertion had come the realisation that smiles would be never be enough to pacify the cold chill that had enveloped his heart and soul. Winter had crept upon him and he had not even realised it. It was time that he returned home, back through the woods, to where his parents and his warm bed awaited him.
In winter the woods were dark and fearsome. Terrified he had stumbled through them in the dark, half crawling, half running and always desperately afraid. He tripped and fell in that cold, unforgiving environment, and lay there sobbing loudly, as all around him the darkness encroached. Eventually he found the will to get up and move on, knowing that winter would surely be followed by spring and then all would be right in the world again. So he walked on and on through the cold, dank air, until finally his home appeared in the distance. The window was incandescent from the friendly flicker of the log fire that burnt within. He could feel the icy talons relinquish their grip on his heart for a brief second in that promise of warmth.
After three loud knocks on the oak-panelled door had failed to draw anyone from the house he moved around to the back door, which had been left unlocked. He went at once to the front room, in which the familiar glow dwelt. However, his parents were not there. Nor were they in any other room. In fact the whole house looked different from how he had seen it last. Upstairs an unfamiliar couple slept in his parents’ room and his own room was stripped as much of life as of paint. The discovery would have shocked him, had he not been too cold to feel any emotion. There was no emotion anymore only an awful shiver that ran through every bone and every muscle and every tortured sinew of his withered old body. On a table he saw an abandoned pistol and he took it because all that he had known was gone and all that he had wanted had been denied. And worst of all it left him cold. So bitterly cold.
Slowly, on old, arthritic joints he crept out of the house and to the bench that his father had built a few weeks before. It looked out of place on the path, an ice blue haven for the lost and weary. He shivered again. It was cold, so very cold, that evening, if not that lifetime, as he sat alone. The lake was a sheet of frozen ice and barren of all life. And it was cold, so desperately cold, as he sat on the blue bench all alone. The trees were naked and shivered in the icy wind that cruelly enjoyed removing their last remaining leaves. Across the road from the bench there was house whose windows radiated warmth and light. Yet outside it was cold, so deathly cold, as he sat on that blue bench and watched his old house intently. His tears froze to the side of his face as he looked at the gun in his hand and remembered his life.
But it was too cold for memories and the ice wind made his teeth chatter so loudly he could barely think anymore. And where was spring? Where was Spring? Where was new life and a gradual return of the light. Yet as he sat it remained cold winter. Cold, barren, vacant winter. Diana’s pale eye illuminated his surroundings, but only in her icy huntress glare, as he forced the gun into his mouth, but the fiendish chattering of his teeth and the ice tremor in his arms made the task nearly impossible. And the gun’s cold steel burnt his tongue. In the freezing heat caused of the gun’s touch he found his Spring. He found warmth that emanated from the cold, cold, winter. So with butterfly fingers he pulled the trigger and let leaping zephyr of crimson scorch from the back of his head, as a gunshot choir serenaded the moon and the stars, and howling dogs whispered novenas for the departing soul. Lights thundered on up and down the street as its bedrooms came to life, awakened by the haunting melody outside. But when the melody had faded the slumbersome clamour subsided and lights flicked out in an instant. The incident was wiped from their memories instant. And it was still so very cold outside. It was still so very cold.