Nature's Bereavement

A humming sound echoed throughout the street, the same hum that emitted each morning from the same man. Some that shy away at the overcoated figure and others that greet his smile with a tip of their hat. Whichever one he passed, his smile never faltered, strolling through the streets with a smile and a hum that not one could take away. The man lowered his hum as a faint instrument carried through the crowd, his eyes tore through the crowd until he found the source of the magnificent noise. His smile rose, reaching into his pocket, and dropping 2 quarters into the man's hat, which was received with a silent, but gracious thank you. The man continued, observing the street as he did every day, never hoping for anything but the simple routine he managed.

The sky above him shone dark and grey, preparing for what seemed to be a cold storm, but that didn’t bring him down a bit. The others around him froze like deer in the cold, but he thrived in it, a wolf blending in perfectly with the skulk.

At his ripe, median age, the ones around him, so-called wiser than him, advised him to consider a romantic partner. While a usual fox may have considered it, even encouraged it, he was quick to dust it off. While a few ladies most definitely took intense interest in him, he had none. Not one interested him in the way that his partner did, while–obviously–it was not the kind of relationship they meant, he still considered it a lifelong commitment, one he was more than willing to accept.

The man quickly turned on his heel, towards the swiftly moving crowd. Finding an intersection, he crosses it in one quick motion of his foot, not a speck of dirt out of its routine. He reached for the door, preparing to open it, when another man got to it first, opening it from inside the supply market. The man took a step back, surprised.

“Mr.Edison! Welcome back!” He regained his composure, greeting him with a nod of his head, his smile still plastered across his face.

The other man led Mr.Edison into the store with a brisk hand gesture. “We have got your order right behind the counter.”

He walked behind the counter, the store a small gathering place for the late day. Mr.Edison walked with an aura of elegance, his hands fit almost firmly behind his back, and his grin still stationary. The shopkeeper lifted a relatively large burlap bag from the back of the counter, setting it down in a stout manner. The man reached into his overcoat, prepared to continue his routine as usual.

“Oh, please, no, sir. Your money is no good here; you are too good a man to pay for simple feed.”

The man insisted, as not paying would not be right, especially in years such as these they lived in. After some little convincing, the shopkeeper agreed, taking his shilling, and the man exited the store with his feed and a lowering of his head.

The sun set into a light dusk, the fog growing with the tick of time. The man carried the feed across town, to where the forest stopped and started, dirt bleeding into the stone-bricked road. His foot crossed the threshold at the cue of a few pitched laughs and mumblings. His smile met the faces of rotted gentlemen, hunters–obviously–the gruesome, untamed type. Their shirts unkept, the one at far right had an evident dirt stain that shone with uncleanliness. They all wore the generally same outfit, a white shirt–unbuttoned at the tips for two of them–their waistbands connected to straps that wore over their shoulders. One wore a decently nice blazer, clearly worn as the plaid was fading to a brown, but still nice. They snickered across the street with echoed intentions that the man could not make out. He widened his smile, tipped his hat, and turned back to the greenery, disappearing into the shadows of the trees.

–

Past a tall spruce, a dark cabin sat, supposedly built by the man himself, although not many know on where even the man came from. Despite all the rumors, the man did build the cabin, right before he met his partner. She was tall and of great weight, lurking in the darkest parts of the small town. Somehow fitting in places no man can, and that fact fascinated him.

The man passed the tall spruce–the bark now brittled and cracked–crunching leaves under his heavy foot, the bag of feed thrown across his shoulder. A low grunt sounded affront him, his smile softening. The cabin came into view in no time, even while the fog from morning–and now night–remained, but instead of leading the feed to a barn, or a pasture, or inside his cabin, he rounded around the porch that became narrower and narrower as it wrapped around its foundation. A substantially large patch of brown lay at the side of the house, showing that his partner had been there for quite some time. The man laid the food down next to the patch, glancing around to find his little mate before emitting a few grunting noises, which were received with a response.

A deer poked its head out from behind a tree, her ears flicking before trotting her way around the large spruce and towards the man.

Small spots no longer appeared on her back, sorrowing the man a bit as she nuzzled her nose against the warmth of his coat. He knelt, opening the bag of feed, picking a handful, and bringing to towards her. The doe ate it out of his hand as if it were routine, which it was. Every day after his errand,s he would walk to the supply market and grab a bag of food for a shilling and bring it back here.

The man rose from his knees, keeping the bag of food open for the lady. He placed a soft kiss atop the doe’s head before heading inside. She squeaked, lying next to the food in a pile of leaves.

—

The winter sun rose against the cotton of his curtains. The fireplace roared with warmth as the man dressed himself for the day. Most men would have drunk their coffee by now, sitting on the porch watching the sun rise through trees they can't see through, but the man had never had the appeal of the gadgets of making coffee in his kitchen; he thought the grounds were too much. The spike of energy that keeps most men going does not come from coffee for him; it comes from a more sentimental source.

The door opened with a rough bang, the wood against wood echoing through his house and forest. Frigid winter air swam into the cabin, blowing his overcoat almost off its holder. The rain sprinkled the ground with delicacy. He walked around the porch, guiding through as it turned narrow. Perched on the edge, he observed that his fellow lady was not sleeping in her spot. A hollow dip in the leaves caught his eye, and he walked back to the entrance and grabbed his overcoat.

The leaves seemed to be all in the right order, apart from a large dip on the side. The producer of it seemed unknown, the rain washing any marks right away. He rose once more, the rain beating against his hair and blocking his vision, making it hard to spot anything, let alone a deer in the trees. Still, his mind going to the positives first, he departed for town.

Tracking himself out of the forest was not hard, even in the rain. Making that unmarked trail a thousand times before, what was hard was trying to focus while the entire town felt like a looming ghost.

The man, a smile plastered on his face, strolled through the streets that were filled with dismay. The usuals who greeted him now shy away, hiding their faces from the man's view, and the ones who would shy away were now nowhere to be seen. An uneasiness settled in his core, one he sought to ignore before it became too unbearable.

The rain continued to pour louder and harder as the man reached the center of town.

“Sir.”

The man turned towards the market, the same man who had greeted him with feed yesterday stood under the awning, his face as white as a ghost. He stepped under the awning, a sense of worry clouding his eyes.

“Is everything alright? You look paler than the rain that falls.”

The shopkeeper held his breath; the man could hear his heart beating so fast it might jump out.

All the shopkeeper could do was turn his head towards the fog of the town center, invisible from where they were standing. The man obliged, walking past him and towards the town center, the uneasiness in his stomach showing via his wavering smile.

Murmuring started up once he entered the foggy abyss; the entire town stood around the town pole. The man entered the fog, following the people's gaze; his eyes met a horrendous sight.

His smile faltered, dropping so ever suddenly. His ears flooded with noise, the noise of gasps and voices. His heart started up; maybe his would jump out instead.

His hand reached out, caressing his partner's face for the last time. The blood dripped slower than the rain that seemed to match his emotions. A stake pierced through her heart, her eyes still open, a haunting image.

The noise was gone, the last thing left, his ragged breaths, as he couldn’t dare to meet her eyes. His one partner no longer had the spark of life that woke his heart of sleeplessness every time the sun rose.

The noise came back like a train off the tracks, laughs emitted from the fog. The same raspy, rotten gentleman that he had silently encountered at the forest stood not 15 feet away. Their laughs told all the tales he needed to know about what conspired here. He reached up, unhooking the doe from the pole, and gently laying her upon the brick stone ground. Her blood mending within the cracks of the stone. The man, kneeling afront the body, placed his hand above her eyes, closing them for the last time.

His breath froze in the downpour of tears that Mother Nature cried for her child. The sky had grown dark, and the rain poured hard against the ground. Citizens had flocked to their houses, locking up their doors for the night to come, praying for a release from the storm that wrangled it.

The blood still dripped slowly, but this time in threes, and not of Mother Nature. The man stood silently, a deliverer of the thorns that the mother sought vengeance with. He had carried her child back to her resting place, burying her under the mound of leaves, watching as the dirt and vines covered her under the soil. Once he returned, he was not filled with the same sorrow that had flooded him before, but renewed with an ache that could only be bestowed upon him by a guardian.

The men hung on the pole, stakes pierced through their chests, each one carefully placed as a reminder of what they did. Not one died at the time of impact. Each one bleeding out, billowing their rotten insides onto the stones they placed. The man simply stared, admiring his work. When the morning sun would rise, the rotten men would be discovered, but not the slaughterer. He would be gone, disappearing with the fog that would soon rise.

The shopkeeper will look out for the man, silently wondering if he will ever return. The rain continues to pour as the man turns towards the woods, his life left behind him.

A wonder at if Mother Nature will cradle him in her vines as he leaves, or will she leave him to rot like the remains of mankind.