Leaning against the rails of the balcony, she looks up and peers into the sky. Lazy yet practised are the lines left by clouds and cars, sun and stars, the rain. How carelessly the world seemed to exist, being fickle in the most decisive way, moving in undeterminable patterns. Much like her own existence, she thought. These thoughts of agony are natural to us, for humans are used to travelling in a straight line, never ceasing, never straying. Yet summer prepares for the winter in fall, and winter prepares for the summer in spring, and she alone was unprepared for what her own seasons would bring.

26.08.19
Where she lived, it had always been summer.

It was getting hotter; all anyone could ever do was sweat and scorch, pleading for the rain that had not come in weeks. The world is relentless, and so relentless she remained, toiling under a never-ending heat. Summer brought work and play in equal measure; there is no rest for the weary, but she never worried over the hearth growing cold, for in the heat, the fire rekindles on its own.

The grass cried out a different story, growing parched on her front porch. If every world is a garden, then every soul is its own garden, though most have not the green fingers for it. I was left to tend hers in her absence, but her neglect cast a dry spell I could not banish. Her tiny garden dried up and shrivelled. Though she had willed it to be summer forever, fall had crept up on her. In truth, it was already winter.

It was hard to get by. Vines ravaged the wasteland, writhing in grief and despair. They snaked around her ankles, dragging her into the depths of the cold. Left in the corner, she shivered from winds only the death of a loved one could have turned that cold. There was no escape: she watched the lakes freeze over like the ice was a black inky poison creeping into everything she had ever known, staining every surface grayscale. It was a colourless world without purpose or hope. It was the first time she ever knew loss.

I spent the days clearing snow and kindling fires. Slowly, though she did not notice, the pine began shaking free of the ice. Winter did its rounds; I bid it goodbye. As she awoke, she found the sky a little less grey.

Just as winter left, came the first day the rain descended upon the summer to banish the dry spell.

26.08.20
Things had changed in the past year. Another round of seasons passed, and it came time for winter again. I was no longer the sole groundskeeper; she joined me this time and tended the gardens diligently. Valiant is the soldier who charges into the battlefield—one could not have faulted her for feeling prepared to face the winter this time, but each season brings its own surprises, and this summer was not as kind. Loss returned in several disguises, through failure and broken dreams, through changing plans and a changing world—a different life to any she had ever anticipated. When the winter came, she slipped on the ice, the salt she had scattered rubbing into her old wounds instead.

The winds blew, and in its wake, emptiness pervaded. The tendrils that snaked around her limbs were not of agony, but of a dark abysmal force that swallowed her whole. She sensed this embrace was intended as a warm welcome (anaesthetics numb the pain), but instead she was simply robbed of sadness, joy, and everything in between. The lands were barren; she roamed as a ghost. Fawns lovingly nuzzled her only for her arms to fall through their embrace. The trees were no more real, for if they rustled, she did not hear it. It was a colourless, formless, featureless world she could not inhabit.

I knew the spring would come, and so did she, but fear would never call us strangers. For we are more alike than different, she and I, both the victims of a callous world cycling through its seasons. When the day came that the winter had gone, we awoke as one—out of the nightmare into a waterfall of colour, the warmth of the sun shining gently unto her face.

The mysteries of the seasons shall never be known, but let it at least be told—that all shall come to pass in time, soon enough.