The Quiet That Follows

Written and designed by: Avelyn (25-A2)

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With a touch, life turned to dust.

A rabbit grew limp in his embrace; a  fledgling fell from its nest.

So quietly, tenderly, he observed the silence. 

And safely, his hands were tucked  into his cloak.

A hush hung in the winter-green air, a lull in the 

moon-lit night. He tread slowly, ice crunching underfoot.

A snap, the forest cleared its throat

Wood bloomed beneath his boots

A grazing fawn stilled.

Silently, now, he stared as it lifted its head

ears carved sharp with fear. 

Then it streaked through the trees 

And the soil mourned the emptiness.

The loneliness numbed his limbs 

The silence bitter, biting, gnawing

And so he sat on the graveyard of the snow-faeries

Silently, quietly,

Alone.

But still Death wandered

And the Sun bared its face a thousand times more, 

His shadow carving through the sheer white of pine and frost

The life in the snow fleeing into soot-dust that smudged the wind.

He saw the fawn again,

always the same one.

Each time it paused

Each time, it fled

Its hooves skittering across the frost-bitten earth.

Death learned its patterns;

The soft bend of fern where it slept

The hollow log it favoured at dawn

And the pools from which it drank.

As the maple shed its years in rusted gold

The fawn– now grown–grew thinner, slower

Its breath fogging the air with fragile threads

But still it ran whenever he neared.

Yet, one evening, beneath the dusk sky

Washed pale with dying rose

It did not run;

Instead, it stood, head lowered.

He stepped forward, hesitantly

His shadow spilling across the snow

There was no fear now; in its eyes

So softly, he reached out, his touch gentle

And the deer sank into quietude

A whisper of breath dissolving in frost

And for a heartbeat, even the wind held its tongue

The world hushed

He rose, hands empty once more

But the snow still held his memory

Whenever he walked, life turned to dust

And the forest trembled, whispering his name.