Winter Solstice

Winter Solstice

Discovered: January 22, 2022

Tags: Scene

Winter wind bites. As the slow and tired trudges through the knee high snow.

“Almost there,” he exhales to the cold air. And through the shared breath of his newborn daughter, he catches the clarity of her stare, unwavering. An unstoppable trust held tightly to his chest.

It is the winter solstice and these days on the windswept peaks of Kyr, travelers do not venture out into the night. Tales of beasts to scare the children to bed and the gossips of the lost to keep the sensible at bay.

The division between the natural torrents and the dissipating warmth of life lies solely in the craft of this woolwork, as he tucks her further into his coat.

There’s a story that is not mine to tell. Perhaps in these paragraphs, his mind and body is condensed into a newfound purpose to serve those more fortunate that simply reads his memoirs. To read and not share his pain and relish in this their own lucky fates. To pinpoint and exemplify the mistakes he made and patronize the hungry consumers to not repeat them. To not repeat or suffer his ill, self-realized fate.

It is a long trek back down the mountain. The ice compounded against his bloodied boots and coat, forcing him to make progress leaning his whole body into each step. Each step into this long night. Each step farther away from home.

Gertrund scrawled the path on a map as the heavy snowfall continues to beat the glass windows. She hands it over to him; it is the best they could manage in such a short notice. And with the storm raging on, excursions beyond the village are doomed to fail. Yet, with uneasy certainty, he leaves ready to take it on. If not for his duty, then for me.

And so, as in the end of every winter, the new summer winds will pass over for the coming year, however lonely it now blows. It will go unchanged and unforgiving. Those lost to time are reduced to fragmented memories and soon returned to the ether around us. Time simply moves on and once again the roaring blizzard will reawaken to test us all. And those remaining will find again the thunderous silence of an ever quieter winter.