In The Woods

Chapter 8

The Grey Day of Mourning

         The sun peered out over the horizon very reluctantly the next day.  Everything looked dulled and gray.  A cloudy haze settled in all of the trees branches and a light but chilly rain drizzled in from dark clouds, making the forest a very gloomy place to be in.  A very large group of animals were circled around a fallen willow tree, tears  shining in sorrowful, luminous eyes.  One by one, they each laid flowers in the giant tree's beautiful, wispy branches. 
         The birds began to whistle a soft and slow tune and the wolves joined in with their low and mournful chorus of howling.  A small rabbit with a tearstained face wrapped her furry paws around the great leg of one of the wolves.  A squirrel dried his tears with his bushy tail and then reached over and dried the tears from the face of a mole standing beside him.  The two looked at each other as they sniffled and while the mole's wife clasped his arm and the squirrel's wife intertwined her tail in his.  Slowly, after dusk, the mourning crowd of funeral attenders thinned and everyone went home to be by themselves or with their loved ones.