In the Heart of Winter

Winter sighed as he gazed up at the tree, running a hand through is icy hair. Every year it was the same; this tree's leaves would not dry out and fall away; the blossoms never left it. It was always pink and green, no matter how many blizzards or ice storms he threw at it. The colors clashed with his scheme of blue and black and white, and that irritated him.


There were other trees in the grove, but they had long since lost their color. Their sharp, monotone shadows threw the other tree into an even shaper contrast, and although snow was piled high in the crooks of the black branches of the dead trees, not even a flake would touch the pink flowers of this tree.


He had spoken with Autumn about it the year it started, but all he got was a sly, knowing glance from hazelnut eyes and a smooth voice saying, "But don't you think it's pretty?"


That had annoyed him even more than the tree itself; Autumn had always been too high-and-mighty for his own good. Just an in-between season, Winter had once said condescendingly.


All he got then was another knowing look and, "But if I'm just an in-between season, that means so is she."


This shut him up for a good decade or so, and he sat before the tree with snow banks building steadily around him, willing the blossoms to freeze and die, directing such an icy glare at the glossy green leaves that it would have frozen a volcano solid. He would stare at it for so long that his blue eyes would freeze open. And yet year after year, decade after decade, winter after winter, the tree would not die.


He would take Autumn's place after the leaves had been painted a beautiful red-gold, and he would sit in front of the tree lashing at it with snow and ice until it was time for Spring to come.


Although he was always eager to cast aside Autumn's dramatic colors for his own set of calming grays and whites, he would always hurry away from Spring when she approached, unwilling to watch his gentle artwork melt into loud, cheerful life. He would hide in the north, watching as she raised flowers from frozen ground, as she drew buds from his black branches.


Every year she would come to the grove, as they all did, and when she saw the tree blooming in the distance, she would laugh.


Winter had met Summer a few times before while visiting the tropics (there had been an especially cold rainy season that year) and though she was vibrant and full of fun and life, there was something about the way Spring laughed that could not be compared to any of Summer's antics.

Spring's laugh was victorious, it was joyful and it made him think of how he loved the sun on clear days, even though it melted his precious snow and frozen filigree work. It made him forget how much the pink and green clashed with his dull colors.


It made him forget how foolish he had been to put his heart in a tree, where his love could be laid bare for all to see.