The Last Cold Day

It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark. I could hear the trees cracking in the opening ahead of me. The snow fell slowly onto my face, melting into cold streams that ran down my cheeks, leaving behind a sting as the air kissed me. I stood over the fresh dirt of my mother's grave. Everyone else had left for a family member’s house to laugh, cry, and tell stories, both good and bad, of my mother.

“Come, burden us,” a scratchy whisper came from the woods at the edge of the cemetery. I was unsure if it was the cold wind in my ears, the cracking trees, or something else entirely, but my attention, once fixed on the mound of dirt, was now drawn to the clearing in the trees.

“Burden” had been one of my mother’s favorite words. She always tried her best to hide her feelings, and eventually her health, from me, afraid of being a burden. Her own abusive upbringing had taught her never to let the darkness of the world fall onto someone else. Because of this, I hadn’t realized how sick she was until she was gone. While I never felt unloved in my household, I never truly felt like a member of the family. Families laugh and cry together, but I had been hidden from the darkness, leaving me feeling more like an important guest instead of a family member, too important to bother with the ugly truth. Now I stood there, unsure how to deal with these emotions I kept trying to suppress.

“Burden,” the word came from the woods again. This time I saw several small shadows dance around in the growing darkness of the trees.

Then I felt it, a slight warmth coming from the trees. It was a quick flash of heat that danced along my fingers, drawing me toward the woods. The warmth made me feel… something good, a welcome change from the coldness that had seeped into my heart. Each step made a hollow crunch in the snow.

“Come, I will let you feel,” the voice said, becoming softer and warmer. I no longer saw any shadows in the darkness. The sunlight had faded completely, and I was left in the darkness of this lightless cemetery, surrounded by the memories of hundreds of families now buried in the ground.

I was not thinking, only moving. My body was being drawn to the woods like a moth to flame. The warmth flashed again.

“It’s beautifully sad here,” the voice said with a broken warmth.

“Who’s there?” I asked, my words cracking as a rush of memories and emotions hit me.

Shortly after I got the news about my mother, I was told that “grief would hit me in waves” when I didn’t show emotion. But I had found the opposite to be true. The grief was always there, maybe even before I got the news. It was the control that came in waves. Moments when the walls crumbled and my burden escaped.

The voice in the woods let out a slight whimper, followed by, “It’s okay, I’m here for you.”

A small mass of birds rushed from the brush where the voice came from. Something about that whimper caused the crack in my strength to widen, and I found myself crying, my face twisting as I couldn’t stop the flood pouring onto the ground beneath me.

“Come, I will free you,” the voice said through sorrowful words.

Again the flash of heat hit me.

A memory surfaced. I was young, on a family road trip to Florida to visit my grandfather on my mom’s side. The heat of that large van with no AC had burned the moment into my mind all those years ago.

I felt a stutter in my body. It started in my heart and stretched all the way down to my knees, like a tree branch rapidly growing, cracking and shaking as it moved. It wasn’t long before I found myself on my knees in the snow, sobbing as I tried to regain control. And just as I began to retake it, I felt a warm hand on my shoulder.

“Oh honey, it’s okay. I’m here now.”

The wall shattered. Any semblance of control I had was gone. I was shaking, leaking from every part of my face.

“How…” I tried to speak, but it was hard to form words through my pained breathing. “How can this be better? How do I stop this?” I managed to say.

The hand on my shoulder tightened right to the edge of painful as an explosion of warmth erupted from their grip. I tried to look at who was touching me, but between the darkness and my tears, I saw nothing. The warmth taking over my body stripped away the cold inside me, the one thing I had been focusing on to keep myself steady.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled aloud. I wanted to say more, to apologize for my current state, but the only words I could manage were “I’m sorry,” repeated over and over again.

“Break with us,” the voice said as multiple hands grabbed hold of me, lifting me to my feet. Each of these hands was hot, and they all ushered me into the woods.

With each strained step I took, I heard soft cries and whimpers from several unseen people creeping out from around the trees. My body became wrapped in the warm darkness. I was lost there, and scared. I was consumed with emotions I had never been allowed to feel before.

The cries blended into one trembling note, pulling tighter around my ribs with every step. The hands guiding me grew hotter, their warmth shifting from comforting to feverish, like embers pressed against my skin. I tried to stop, to breathe, to think, but the ground beneath my feet had softened, sinking slightly with each step as though the forest were breathing beneath its frozen shell.

“I can’t…” I managed, though my voice cracked in the dark.

A dozen whispers brushed the air at once.

“Hush. We will make you feel.”

The trees bent inward as if listening. Snow steamed off my shoulders filling my lungs. The darkness ahead pulsed with a faint reddish glow, soft and rhythmic, like a heartbeat. Then the hands let go.

I swayed, breath shallow, tears still slipping freely. The warmth gathered behind me, circling, drawing closer. Something stepped forward, soft at first, like cloth sliding over soil. Then another. And another. I felt them before I saw them, their heat rolling in slow waves that pressed against my back and curled around my waist.

“It's beautifully sad here,” the chorus whispered, but now the sadness vibrated in my bones.

A face emerged from the dark.

At least, it resembled a face.

It hovered inches from mine, its features shifting gently, as if shaped from smoke and memory. Its cheeks were smooth and reflective, catching the faint glow like polished stone. But its eyes, its eyes were hollow, blank as a fresh grave and just as accepting. A second face floated beside it, matching the first except for a long crack running down where a mouth should have been. A third leaned close from behind my shoulder, pressing its forehead lightly to mine as though greeting an old friend.

Their heat seeped into my skin, soft at first, then deeper, sinking into my muscles, my chest, my throat. My breath scratched. My heart stuttered.

“Y-you’re not…” I reached for the shape in front of me, desperate for something human, something real. My fingers hovered near its cheek, and the air there vibrated like water just before it boiled.

“Oh honey, it’s okay… We’re here now.”

The voice wasn’t one voice anymore, my mother’s tone flickered through it for a heartbeat before breaking apart into dozens of whispers, mournful and hungry.

My knees hit the softened ground. The faces leaned closer. Their foreheads pressed against mine, their heat searing through the last of the cold I’d held onto, the cold that had been helping me stay upright.

Their hands, far too many hands, settled on my shoulders, my arms, the sides of my face. Each touch was blisteringly warm, and I welcomed it. It was the first thing in days that didn’t feel empty.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

The chorus shivered with delight.

“Break with us.”

Their warmth rushed into me in a violent swell, pouring through my skull, down my spine, flooding my chest until I couldn’t breathe. My grief tore open under the pressure, every suppressed feeling bursting out of me with a sound I didn’t recognize as my own.

The creatures leaned closer, inhaling. Drinking the warmth pouring off my skin. Drinking the ache spilling from my lungs.

My vision burned white at the edges.

The last thing I felt was their foreheads pressed to mine, their empty eyes reflecting the exact shape of my sorrow as the warmth took me under, slowly, gently, completely.

And then the forest went quiet, and the cold reclaimed what the warmth had taken.