Written for the Tsukumine shrine challenge: Change card
Standard disclaimers apply.
Outside the window, the seasons changed. Chill autumn winds scoured the branches clean of leaves, even as the treesclutched desperately at the last vestiges of summer. Before long, cruel winter would arrive, and bury autumn's vibrant pathways of crimson leaves under a shroud of snow. No legacy would remain to tell of their former glory.
Such was the nature of human lives, she mused. Theirs wasa fragile, brittle beauty, reminiscent of snowflakes, and just as evanescent. Change is the only constant.
Once she might have mentally added "and love", but that appellation belonged to another time, another season, to those days in which she faced the future with a sanguine smile and an optimistic "everything will be all right".
He had left her, despite his protestations to the contrary. The time they had spent together was nothing more than a treasured memory. And something in her had changed, as she watched his casket being lowered into the earth that seemed all to ready to accept him.
The world changed. She could no longer stand to hear the strains of birdsong that filtered through her shuttered window every morning, for they were laced with a discordant, mocking note. Flowers which used to sooth her had a sickeningly sweet odour that reminded her of funeralflowers. Even the sunlight was imbued with a maleficent quality. But it was the people who had changed the most. They began avoiding her, even her closest friends. In the end, she had simply packed and left. No one tried to stop her.
Nature would have its way, and the seasons would change. Winter, too, would eventually thaw to spring. But spring would be all the less without him by her side, and nothing would ever change that.
So how is it?Tell me if you'd like me to do more. It could be Fight next, or maybe Flower. Reviews are gratefully accepted.
Please do not steal this story's idea. It may not be much, I know, but it's original.