As the sun falls

              A small forest surrounds a quaint little hut, a way-weary adventurer sees it in the distance just as the sun sets basking the world in darkness. The air chills and a light powder of snow begins to fall. The adventurer works his way ever closer to the hut. An owl swoops out of a tree and flies across his path, the moonlight reflecting off of it's eyes.

      The adventurer becomes intrigued at the sight of the majestic hunter, and places his next step in a precarious position causing him to trip. The adventurer falls to the ground in a manner that seems almost graceful, alas in his fall he hit his head upon a rock, causing a small trickle of blood to roll along the back of his unconscious head. As the snow lightly falls unaware of the poor adventurer it slowly begins to bury him.

  In that quaint little unassuming hut in the middle of the small forest sits the adventurers wife waiting for someone who will never return. She sends out a search party in two days, but by that point the snow gentle and unrelenting has covered the adventurers body, they only find his corpse because of the crimson colored snow. He was dead within hours from loss of core temperature.

      The fourth night after that way-weary adventurer took his fatal step the snow fell heavier, a blizzard began within the hour. As the snow blocks the moonlight from view the adventurers wife steps forward onto her table in the quaint little hut. A scarf hangs down from a beam in the roof, tied in a noose. The adventurers wife stands there for what seems like an eternity before placing her head in the noose, and kicking the table away. Her screams and struggles are muffled by the blizzard raging outside. In her dying breath she whispers the words "May the world be merciful to those who follow."

    With those dying words the same hunting owl that took her husbands life flies over the roof of the hut. In a weeks time the blizzard subsided, and the next day when her house was still covered in the frozen casing nobody came to find her, for the search party that found her husband was from the nearest town five miles away.

      Years and decades passed, the forest slowly turned into urban areas and approximately thirty years in passing lead to the wood rot of the quaint little hut seeing many summers and winters go by unoccupied. This trend lasted until one worker saw the wooden shack and thought it would make a good home.

      This worker walked inside and was startled by the corpse of the adventurers wife, he reported it to his superior and the issue was sorted out. The adventurers wife was given a proper burial and there was one attendee in particular that only the worker noticed. The funeral began in the early afternoon, and lasted until the sun once again fell and the world plunged into darkness. As the darkness set in an owl flew across the night sky noticed solely by the worker who found that quaint little hut.

      The worker restored the small hut in the woods, and each night just as the sun set and the earth is plunged into darkness an owl flies the same path its ancestor flew that fatal night. 

      The wish of the adventurers wife came true, the worker married and had three children, he taught them to watch each night for the owl.

      Another decade passes and the town has taken away all but one tree, a sole survivor, the tree next to the quaint little wooden shack once surrounded by a small forest now set against apartment buildings and skyscrapers. Even that tree is soon to go. The night before the tree is to be cut down, just as the sun sets and the world is caked in darkness, the worker steps outside to watch the owl take its flight one last time.

      This time the owl does something unexpected it comes and lands next to the worker. The worker looks the owl in the eye and whispers the words "Thank you. Thank you for being a point of consistency in an ever-changing world, but it seems that your time has come." A single tear falls down the workers face and the owl takes its wing and wipes the tear away, and flies off towards the light of the moon; and as the owl flies out of sight the worker breaks into uncontrollable tears.

        The next day the tree is cut down and the workers youngest child, only of eight years, sits with the worker and waits. When the sun falls below the horizon and the earth is basked in darkness the owl fails to fly its path and the child asks her father "Dad, why did the owl stop flying?" and the worker responded "Because humans have no respect for those who were there first, whether it be an entire new nation, or a simple forest, we always bring on change, change that nobody, man or animal, appreciates. " and the young naive girl fell asleep right there never bringing up the subject again.

      Years passed and the worker looked every night for the owl, wherever he went. The worker went nearly his entire life without seeing it again, but he did see the owl one more time. When the worker became old and venerable, succumbing to old age he was taken to the hospital and told to rest. He looked out of his window as the sun set behind the horizon and the world became basked in darkness and he saw the owl fly by towards the moon on a path just like the one it had taken for so many years. It was then that the worker was content, he closed his eyes for the last time and let death take over.