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Here is a flash fiction piece that was included in Four Seasons. It is now included in an e-book of poetry and short stories.
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That winters house, there, where once I did abide.
A dark cold wind sought me, found me willing and unprotected. I will find no warmth there is none in me to find. I am hardly a flicker in the air, a stir, and chill. If you meet me, you will not see me, though you may turn and wonder at that stray and sorrowful thought that did but sneak in amongst your cherished mind-pictures of warm summertime picnics and trips to the shore, as you pull up your collar against the midnight frost and slowly cross yourself. No need that; I am past causing any harm. I too see the bright smiling faces of your children and the one you love, but it pains me, stabs me, too bright for me to hold. As my cold sorrow leaves your mind, as a wisp of gray smoke, so too does your bright and shiny thoughts leave mine and leave me more desolate and strange.
I linger under my full faced, silver frost, celestial companion, hanging high in the winter's night sky. My quiet friend tries to give me reasons with stolen shine. Says it, “You are a natural thing, just as I am. We, both, cold and lifeless things, stuck in eternity, with long empty thoughts that avail us nothing, give little pause, and we aware through long tears and still. Quiet. Winter and deep cold suits us best, for there is no mercy for what is and no quarter given.”
That winter’s house there in a faraway dream, where once I did abide.
Here I neither stand, nor sit, nor lie in repose, but am a mist, suspended and lingering in some memory that clings, like frost, to those windows unclear and vacant. I will not enter. I cannot, for a greater fear makes my distant soul cringe. I feel in some other place. I feel it with senses that I do not own. Like the trees asleep to winter’s cruelty, my soul lies dormant and dreaming, while I a shadow, move through this winter’s held and colorless landscape.
I see winter landing snowflakes on her face, not a warm and glowing face, not ruddy from season’s chill, but pale and flaccid. It is her face, my lost wife, and on the northern wind, I add my wail of pain, giving what is silent meaning. You will hear me in the rafters, in the dark, in the deepest night. You may stir and look about, nervous and unsure. You know that sound for dread, a feeling inherent in the soul. It is guilt and regret and I give it substance. I give it voice to winter’s long night.
I hear, away across some spectral hill, the faint sound of my children’s laughter. They too now grown old and gone to a place I will not enter. I am chained here, though often I am beckoned with mercy, bright and fair. I do not heed its grace. For this shroud I wear with misbegotten pride. I have earned my despair, and darkness defines me. It was my doing, my most grievous fault that she perished, in a contrivance, on that winter’s road, on that Halloween so long ago. I, in selfish anger did not pay heed and my negligence crashed in on us and heaven claimed one innocent soul and left one to wander in-between. You can hear my quiet pain when you are close. You can see me as a moving shadow at the edge of your eye. You will disregard me as an uncomfortable feeling or a chill upon your skin. There is a story here that I will not tell. That would require warmth, and the light of truth, and there is neither light, nor warmth in this endless winter’s night.
That winters house, there, where once I did abide.
End
Ken Lehnig(c)2010
My web site: http://kenlehnig.com
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Why is doing what you love the hardest thing to do? Is it because failing what you thought defined you would be too devastating a thing from which to recover? If so, we stay where mere accident has left us.
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house!
