Rebirth
Honeyed sunlight pooled on the snow-thick ground in that timeless glade. It dripped and flowed down the trunks of ancient oaks, gilding their gnarled, leafless branches with light. The forest floor welcomed the warmth; stunted, frozen plants gladly spread their leaves to herald the dawn; the dawn long overdue.
The sky was painted a brilliant tangerine, the light on the distant horizon slowly banishing the inky blackness of that ruthless, inescapable winter. The mountains stood, the smoky purple of violets, in stark contrast to the rising furnace of the sun.
The sun, at last. Glowing fiercely with blazing heat and radiant yellow, it soared into the heavens, seeming infinitely closer now than ever before. Its tidal wave of dry heat swept across the forlorn earth: surging up the sides of decrepit, frosty mountains, and then cascading down again, down, down into bare forests and deep valleys. It raced along rivers, freeing the water from its arctic prison and releasing giant waterfalls entombed in ice. Light and heat gushed into every hidden corner of the land in a relentless yet silent torrent, until every rock, tree and creature was quenched of their thirst for daylight.
Plop! Splash! Drip, drip, drip! It seemed as if every icicle on earth was melting at once, every single flake of snow converting to water at the same time. The cool, clear flood covered the terrain in a liquid imitation of the light which had done the same a short time before. Streams swelled, water rushed through woods in its desperate quest to return to the far-off sea before the next freeze, unaware that that time was, at last, over. Winter would not return.
The plants strong enough not to be swept away in the first wave of water drank, and green returned to the little glade, as it did all across the great forest. The trees were clothed again, as if some celestial artist had painted each leaf a lustrous emerald.
The sky, dawn now long gone, shone as purely aquamarine as a deep ocean; indeed it was difficult to believe that you were not staring down into Mediterranean waters as you gazed up at it, and that the jewel-bright birds sailing across its emptiness were, after all, not tropical fish. These airborne acrobats, singing for joy as they looped and dived in the unexpected warmth, were the first indication of life other than the trees and plants over which they soared, but now other beasts were making themselves known.
Rainbow trout danced and leapt in the streams, russet red squirrels darted from tree to tree, flashes of scarlet brushes visible only for a second before they were gone. Badgers, moles and other earth-bound creatures opened bleary eyes, considered the world for a minute, and then disappeared back into deeply shadowed dens to wait for the quiet of nightfall. Deer splashed through deep puddles, sometimes pausing collectively to drink the cool, clear water fresh from mountain snow, then abruptly darting off like arrows from a bow; off, off into the rapidly growing woods.
It was as though nature, overjoyed at the sun's unexpected appearance, had suddenly accelerated; flowers burst into being, whole forests vanished under a sea of fragrance and colour, as blossom invaded every part of the sprawling continent. The earth, which had so recently been solely verdant, was now speckled all the colours of the rainbow. The treetops were drenched in soft powder blues and pinks, vibrant oranges and yellows blazed like tiny suns from open meadows, and deep glades and alcoves painted the deeper reds and violets of roses and bluebells.
No-one paused to wonder what had caused this sudden and wonderful rebirth, or how it was that the usual pace of nature had been abandoned. How, who, what and why were not important. Only one thing mattered: spring had come again.