Rain
Merlin pressed his face against the window, gazing out at the endless rain that poured relentlessly down. It felt as if it had been raining forever. Perhaps it had.
It was in the depths of winter that he felt his loss most keenly. The days were shorter, the sun only briefly breaking through the endless rainclouds, and then the cold night would fall. After those bleak months, Spring was supposed to be a time of hope, of rebirth. But this year it just seemed to bring more gloom, darker clouds, rain.
Sometimes, when he was younger, Merlin would greet the spring in his youthful form. After all, when Arthur returned he would want to see someone familiar, something he recognised. That was back in a time when he had hope.
As the centuries passed, and there was no sign of Arthur, Merlin stopped bothering. He would sit by edge of the lake, watching the green shoots push through at the water’s edge just as they always did. After the water had receded, Avalon was no longer an island. He could walk out to it instead of using the boat but the result was the same. There was nothing there. Arthur was gone.
He thought that perhaps there would never be anything there? Perhaps this was his punishment for his failure, the fact that he would have to wait forever and there would never be any sign of Arthur ever again. It certainly felt that way. He was horribly, impossibly old.
So he gave up on youth and let himself look at least a small number of his years. Seventy, eighty… it was nothing compared to Merlin’s real age.
This latest century, there had been a curious new problem. People would come to the door of the small cottage where he lived, people who said they cared. Said they were from charities, help for older people living alone like he was. They were shocked that he didn’t even have electricity there. Merlin, of course, didn’t need it but he couldn’t tell them that.
The visits were tiresome. He didn’t want to move from the lake, he told them. They looked at him pityingly, then looked at each other. Didn’t he know that there was no lake? There hadn’t been a lake in living memory.
“This is where I wait,” he told them, and asked them to leave. They did, but they kept returning.
And then one day they visited and there was no sign of the old man. Just a teenager who had apparently taken his grandfather’s home after the old man had moved to the city. Lies came easily, after so many centuries of them. It was easy to be believed. He was left alone again. He didn’t allow himself to age after that.
Merlin sat in his home and waited as he always did. It was another winter, dark, cold, grey and wet. No sign of any new life, never any sign of Arthur’s return.
Outside the rain was still falling. It never seemed to stop.
Merlin waited.
It was in the depths of winter that he felt his loss most keenly. The days were shorter, the sun only briefly breaking through the endless rainclouds, and then the cold night would fall. After those bleak months, Spring was supposed to be a time of hope, of rebirth. But this year it just seemed to bring more gloom, darker clouds, rain.
Sometimes, when he was younger, Merlin would greet the spring in his youthful form. After all, when Arthur returned he would want to see someone familiar, something he recognised. That was back in a time when he had hope.
As the centuries passed, and there was no sign of Arthur, Merlin stopped bothering. He would sit by edge of the lake, watching the green shoots push through at the water’s edge just as they always did. After the water had receded, Avalon was no longer an island. He could walk out to it instead of using the boat but the result was the same. There was nothing there. Arthur was gone.
He thought that perhaps there would never be anything there? Perhaps this was his punishment for his failure, the fact that he would have to wait forever and there would never be any sign of Arthur ever again. It certainly felt that way. He was horribly, impossibly old.
So he gave up on youth and let himself look at least a small number of his years. Seventy, eighty… it was nothing compared to Merlin’s real age.
This latest century, there had been a curious new problem. People would come to the door of the small cottage where he lived, people who said they cared. Said they were from charities, help for older people living alone like he was. They were shocked that he didn’t even have electricity there. Merlin, of course, didn’t need it but he couldn’t tell them that.
The visits were tiresome. He didn’t want to move from the lake, he told them. They looked at him pityingly, then looked at each other. Didn’t he know that there was no lake? There hadn’t been a lake in living memory.
“This is where I wait,” he told them, and asked them to leave. They did, but they kept returning.
And then one day they visited and there was no sign of the old man. Just a teenager who had apparently taken his grandfather’s home after the old man had moved to the city. Lies came easily, after so many centuries of them. It was easy to be believed. He was left alone again. He didn’t allow himself to age after that.
Merlin sat in his home and waited as he always did. It was another winter, dark, cold, grey and wet. No sign of any new life, never any sign of Arthur’s return.
Outside the rain was still falling. It never seemed to stop.
Merlin waited.