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The Story by Brianne Keating The black shadow of the hawk screamed its reproach, swooping overhead in the cold, dark October night. A man, with will and resolve as firm as the wind was bitter, trudged on. The would-be flakes of snow, now vindictive grains of ice, pelted upon the waves of the wind, lashed furiously into the defenseless red fleshy face, freezing and stinging the downcast eyes. The shadowless trees begrudgingly gave way, whipping and lashing at his back which was sheathed with fur and what cover mustered to thwart the gnawing ache of frost. Hope was as thick in the air as the all-encompassing cold.
Despite the heaving compression of the bitter winter air, the man’s
chest rose and fell even still, the heart beat on, the blood flowed, the legs
drudged forward, left and right, step after piercing step.
The feet within the boots seemed to have long since forgotten the
remembrance of warmth, but yet grew acquainted with cold to stay pain.
Fingers and hands would they knew feeling, would they knew heat, longed
to be burned, yet obediently held close to the tepid, motionless wrappings in
the man’s arms, clasping the object as if all his world lay still in his two
clinging limbs, in the midst of this storming, mocking world of turmoil, pain,
and coldness.
Black eyes from black trees scoffed and scorned as the man stumbled.
Sneers and jeers echoed against the wind and trees as the figure
staggered beneath the weight of the cold, the exhaustion, and the load, but
faltering more from a heart losing hope. One
knee hi the ground—the collision of man’s will and the undeniable forces of
nature and earth, life and death—and then the other.
But before the man fell face forward into the coaxing cold, deep sleep of
snow, the body in his arms stirred.
There is a moment in time, one solitary event, where life and worlds
stand still. And even with winds
whipping and shrieking, surrounding and oppressing, nothing can drown out the
soft murmur of one solitary heart. Softly,
softly upon the wings of self-determination and strength, there is a rising
inside the soul, a stirring within, and despite the attributes of this world,
the fears, regrets, pains, and griefs which this life brings, there is hope.
Hope, rising from the determination of finding and claiming what is
rightly and justly deserved from life, spawning from the deep knowledge that we
can still achieve what we have been struggling for; hope is found and is the
fuel for life, success, and victory. Hope
for that which is the only matter existing in this solitary moment of time; hope
for beauty. Hope for love.
And the beaten and bruised, bleeding and battered heart beats on. Even though the black night bore down heavily upon the shoulders of the hunched, kneeling figure, and even though there was no promise of anything but misery and suffering in this sneering world of dark, hungry woods, one knee rose. And then the other. And the trembling, standing man trudged on into the night, leaving the trees lashing and thrashing against his back, and the hawk wrathfully screaming and echoing behind. |