Snow sprawled across the forest floor in the silent blanket of winter’s embrace. Only the sounds of drifts, long caught upon the branches of the pine, dared move that day as the shadow of morning held the forest to silence. No sunlight could walk upon the earth in daple or lay as a second shadow had eclipsed the horizon, the scar of its appearance fragmenting what was once normal, wounding somthing without form.
Silence.
All encompassing silence raised in utter totality, one that covered the forest so blanketly that no creature or leaf dared disturb it. A noiseless echo cruelled this day, forcing the air low to the ground and raising a chill into the bones of that which was still alive.
A mountain wall stood over the forest, a peak taller than sight allowed stretched outward into the sky and then disappeared into the grey clouds beyond. The sheer cliff walls bore little hand or foothold and their rough surface stood impassively to the land below it. This mountain range was new to the land but its appearance was old, the rock knew ballads of time and fable and despite its scraggy appearance, a heart seemed to beat from within the core…his core.
In the distance a bird found perch upon the husk of a tree and looked across a land that it had seen so many times. It saw change, something had been lost to this world and now lay deep within the earth, a faded image of before growing weaker as its lines became less defined. The mountains still cared for this land despite its loss and it appeared that even now within its tall shadow, it wished to only protect what was beneath it.
Trudging through the snow, a postman walked.
Her horse set free as it was no longer needed, the single postman breathed into her scarf as the cold weighed her movements down and her legs ached for rest. She was all that dared move through the forest on this day; not afraid of the looming silence, she had seen too much to know fear. She walked with a march of purpose and resolute burden, frozen tears and broken leg holding no chance of ever halting her.
A cabin.
A small log built cabin sat in the clearing where it had been left some four days ago. Its chimney smoked with a lazy steam against the winter’s chill and against the shadowed darkness of the day a light did flicker from its windows.
Life was huddled within the cabin, a warmth that felt like the last ember of the last fire, a tiny speck of light radiating in the darkness.
The postman knocked and then walked inside.
Holding a hat, a moth-eaten cap still warm with memory, the trembling hand of the postman passed it to her friend and lingered before letting it go.
‘There’s a letter,’ she said, stuttering the words as they cried to be unsaid. Walking from the cabin the postman then chose to sit down in the snow, her delivery was done and she was so very tired. Knowing that a story was still left to be told she placed her head in her hands and paused for a moment before she could will herself to stand again, she paused for one very long moment.
A scrap of paper was folded into the envelope, a torn page from a spell book, powerless in this state but holding a weight of importance all the same; on its back was scrawled a single word: almost carved furtively into the page.
It read:
Sorry.
-A.C.
-J.McCray
2021
Sunday Short Stories 