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Showing posts from December, 2020

A Glass Sky

  A woman sat on the steps outside her home, broken. She looked up at the stars. It was the best time—the dead cold of a winter's night—when the world’s upper layers turned to glass, and through it one could see every star that ever was.      She started to count them, each shining dot of light, as though it were a lifeline. And so it was. The infinity of the stars meant, to her, an infinite possibility of life, and if she could never count them, then she would remain herself.      One, two, she began….      A thousand and fifty-three…      She was frigid then, her nose so cold it might not have been there.      A thousand, eight hundred and two…      Three thousand two hundred and thirteen…. She couldn’t count anymore. It was then that relief came, in a sigh from a breath that ran through her like hot wine.      The stars weren’t going anywhere.      And neither was she.      Not yet.      For the world seemed full of possibility again.

The Little Girl's Three Wishes

  There was once a little girl who was granted three Christmas wishes.      For the first, she wished for calm; for the second, that there would be peace. But the third wish did not come to her lightly. Indeed, it took her several minutes of pondering over the possibilities of all else that could be wished.      But then she thought of it.       A perfect thing.       One that filled her heart with glee and set her fingers to tingling.     She wished for snow.

Winter's Breath

It was the Spring that made her weep. Early Spring, just as the sprouts pushed up from heavy earth, the burden of it pressed through with equal parts inevitability and magic. Still, it was the loss of something; a barren landscape, of faded harsh lines and cold silhouettes that filled her with this mourning. How long it would be until Autumn broke! How long until the return that made her feel like she could sleep in her own skin and be at peace. For following Spring, came the mock of happiness that glories in a sudden fleeting beauty and tantalizing warmth that is nothing more than a shortened, sharpened shock. But then, just then, as the leaves would begin to slip and the colors would start to riot, one would begin to breathe. For one knew then that death was on one’s doorstep. Death, best greeted with a kiss on each cheek. For it was only when it arrived that the air grew clear as crystal and breathable as the fumes of the finest wine. The blow of Winter’s solemn breath that br

Chaos

 There was once a painter who painted in chaos. Swirls of color and shape; points of light and expansive clouds, all haphazard, devoid of meaning.      The man did not know why he painted as he did, and he could put no name to the works that flowed from his hands to canvas. In a lifetime of painting, there was no thought of reason, no rhyme of knowing, just chaos abounding and explosion in paint that was a strange relief to his artist mind.     After his years had wrung all his work out of him, the painter died.     That was when a most curious observation was made.     When all his works were put together, and people sat back to stare, a memory struck them. It was the images of night and sky, long forecasted revealing distant pasts that plucked the chord. A wave of photographs filled with color and light and clouds moved across their minds. And as the total of his work was seen in whole, it was clear that his madness held an order most unexpected. Indeed, it was in taking this long vi

Trees in the Dark

 The trees sat as whispers swept through them. The words were long and powerful and filled with magic. They spoke of ages come and gone, and wonder yet to be seen; of light and color and something mixed. But the words, their purpose was to share something of the dark.     It took them time, as the trees conversed, slowly and amongst themselves. One tree spoke, and then another, and sometimes they spoke all at once, in a language all their own born of deep roots and tall stretches and dying ember light. No one knew, who was watching, what it was they said. Just as no one knew, who was watching, what it was the whispers meant. But when the stillness came, eyes, the ones that noticed, saw the trees go ridged. They saw them prepare to move.     It seems it was only yesterday that the trees sat and listened. Only yesterday when they took up their roots and marched. Then they were gone, to lands unknown, perhaps to flee the darkness.     And we, the ones watching, saw them no more; more the