the cold and bitter season.
cross-posted to we_are_cities .
for june 19, 2010 || about 650 words || rated: g.
also inspired in part by the character of february in shane jones's novel "light boxes."
HELLO MY NAME IS
Winter. The cold and bitter season. I am not so cold and bitter. It’s true, I vomit slush and ice on the ground when I am sad. But I am not always sad. When I want to melt the frost, rip the clouds apart like wet tissue - sometimes, by accident, I flood whole towns. I have so much blood on my hands now, I wonder why I am not Spring. At least then I could paint the wildflowers red when it was time, ripen strawberries and wrap my wet hands around a lily beetle. Give it color. But I am Winter. All I can do with bloody hands is try, unsuccessfully, to clean them in the snow.
I AM SORRY BUT
I can’t just disappear. Don’t you think I’ve tried? I’ve had machines built against me. Snow plows and flamethrowers, they cut through all my laid-out plans. Children, once their presents are opened and the lights and trees in their living rooms have vanished, they grow to hate me too. It is the hardest thing, to exist in a world where you aren’t wanted. I have tried everything to change. I’ve asked Spring and Summer to ruin me. Even Autumn has extended itself so that I show up late and leave sooner. The months that linger at the start and end of each year, no one touches them. I dive in. I am so courageous. I am the easiest and hardest act to follow.
1888
The year I unraveled. I thought I was going to be ok. Eleven days, I swallowed the sadness that burned my throat. The taste of it, thick and briny, swayed in my stomach like seasickness. On the twelfth day, the blizzard burst from me like feathers from a bashed pillow. The wind rushed in to blow the mess away from the cities I had dumped it upon. Distributive despair. I didn’t mean to kill anyone. It was strange, seeing them all drop dead. All those children snapping and collapsing in the snow. The wind slapped their cheeks until they cried, then froze the tears to their faces. I laughed when one of them tried making snow angels to keep warm. I screamed when the skin on her legs turned black, and she stopped making angels in the snow.
AND EVERY OTHER YEAR
For the rivers that froze over and the skies that were wiped white, for the way your bones cracked open like ice, for that shade of blue the cold turned your skin, for the skulls split open by hailstones, for the buried people, their houses and cars - forgive me. I’m so sorry.
LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
I, the season of Winter, residing in a void in some pocket of the universe, do hereby declare this to be my last will and testament. FIRST: I declare that I have never loved or been loved. Happiness and I, we haven’t met. She lives at the farthest point from where I am. SECOND: Lay me down in mud when I am dead. THIRD: I am scared. This is the worst thing that can happen to me, death. Even worse than being alive is being dead. Forgotten. Swept under the snow. FOURTH: I have nothing to give and bequeath. FIFTH: Had I something to give and bequeath, I would have no one to give or bequeath this thing to. SIXTH: When I am extinct, the sun will shine brighter than it has ever shone, and the ice that coats this planet will glitter until it’s gone. Things will catch fire and no one will notice. I will leave this earth to all of you, and you will maim it in ways I never could have. An old woman will watch her own skin melt off her bones and will wonder, “What happened to Winter?” Then she too will die, and the cold and bitter season will be over.
*
for june 19, 2010 || about 650 words || rated: g.
also inspired in part by the character of february in shane jones's novel "light boxes."
HELLO MY NAME IS
Winter. The cold and bitter season. I am not so cold and bitter. It’s true, I vomit slush and ice on the ground when I am sad. But I am not always sad. When I want to melt the frost, rip the clouds apart like wet tissue - sometimes, by accident, I flood whole towns. I have so much blood on my hands now, I wonder why I am not Spring. At least then I could paint the wildflowers red when it was time, ripen strawberries and wrap my wet hands around a lily beetle. Give it color. But I am Winter. All I can do with bloody hands is try, unsuccessfully, to clean them in the snow.
I AM SORRY BUT
I can’t just disappear. Don’t you think I’ve tried? I’ve had machines built against me. Snow plows and flamethrowers, they cut through all my laid-out plans. Children, once their presents are opened and the lights and trees in their living rooms have vanished, they grow to hate me too. It is the hardest thing, to exist in a world where you aren’t wanted. I have tried everything to change. I’ve asked Spring and Summer to ruin me. Even Autumn has extended itself so that I show up late and leave sooner. The months that linger at the start and end of each year, no one touches them. I dive in. I am so courageous. I am the easiest and hardest act to follow.
1888
The year I unraveled. I thought I was going to be ok. Eleven days, I swallowed the sadness that burned my throat. The taste of it, thick and briny, swayed in my stomach like seasickness. On the twelfth day, the blizzard burst from me like feathers from a bashed pillow. The wind rushed in to blow the mess away from the cities I had dumped it upon. Distributive despair. I didn’t mean to kill anyone. It was strange, seeing them all drop dead. All those children snapping and collapsing in the snow. The wind slapped their cheeks until they cried, then froze the tears to their faces. I laughed when one of them tried making snow angels to keep warm. I screamed when the skin on her legs turned black, and she stopped making angels in the snow.
AND EVERY OTHER YEAR
For the rivers that froze over and the skies that were wiped white, for the way your bones cracked open like ice, for that shade of blue the cold turned your skin, for the skulls split open by hailstones, for the buried people, their houses and cars - forgive me. I’m so sorry.
LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
I, the season of Winter, residing in a void in some pocket of the universe, do hereby declare this to be my last will and testament. FIRST: I declare that I have never loved or been loved. Happiness and I, we haven’t met. She lives at the farthest point from where I am. SECOND: Lay me down in mud when I am dead. THIRD: I am scared. This is the worst thing that can happen to me, death. Even worse than being alive is being dead. Forgotten. Swept under the snow. FOURTH: I have nothing to give and bequeath. FIFTH: Had I something to give and bequeath, I would have no one to give or bequeath this thing to. SIXTH: When I am extinct, the sun will shine brighter than it has ever shone, and the ice that coats this planet will glitter until it’s gone. Things will catch fire and no one will notice. I will leave this earth to all of you, and you will maim it in ways I never could have. An old woman will watch her own skin melt off her bones and will wonder, “What happened to Winter?” Then she too will die, and the cold and bitter season will be over.
*