The storm

The storm batters its way across the valley with frigid blasts tearing at your skin and freezing your capillaries. Unhindered, the winds roar over the plateau, plucking at every nook and cranny, scorning every memory.

There is no kindness or comfort out there as the cold rips against you, and barbed wire scourges your unbelieving soul and mocks your salty lashes. Your loss screams in time with the shrieks from your ice-bound larynx.

You plead with the greyness and the damp, searching for solace and even forgiveness. The howls of the gale make you small.

From the south, light begins to glimmer and diffuse over the plateau. The buffeting fades slowly as the streaks of white cloud stretch further. The violence recedes even as the tail of the sadness rears up and half draws a veil of gauzy grief across your heart.

But in the distance, still far away and approaching cautious as a deer, is a lightening and a heartbeat growing stronger. You try to let yourself hope. Your smile is like silver, easily tarnished.

The storm’s energy renews, frantic and wild. Branches beat against each other and the air is full of debris, twisting and scattering noisily over the ground. Quietly stubborn, the lightness builds and resists the temper. You let yourself hope and your smile is quick like the flash of colour in a butterfly’s wings.