His teeth clenched, biting and holding back his own tears. The bitterness building in the back of his mouth. Fluid perpetrating and tracing down his trachea. Mucus was blistering inside of his torrid esophagus. The collapsing and opening of his airways were harsh and trembling below the base of his collarbone.
Saulen had just lost the love of his life. His late wife, with the untimely telling of her death, left a distasteful reaction in his mouth. Just as spring was rolling around the corner. The heavenly scent of her splendor was left completely unscathed and untouched. For his marriage was unconsummated, unlikely as it was, he wasn’t shamed. As it wasn’t a sham of a betrothal, for he adorned his wife with a tenderness he couldn’t very well put into physical verbal words. For in her very own fears, she allowed him time for his own gentle solace. Even during this time of unchaste fervor. Even when she was coarse with her own feelings, she – herself was left unjustified.
Her laughter no longer reined the halls of his home. The Quarratch.
Woven gossamer spider silk string draped all of the threaded tapestries of the stone coppered walls, from the inside of his barn. From the outside the rusted out planks stood tall in defending itself from the wintered wilderness. Amber and hickory collided together. Saulen removed himself from the dimming torchlights from the inside; the long copper -sienna strands were thrown away from his foresight. His tears still glistened in streams, skimming the base of his irises. His reindeer came forward with a running gallop from the smaller of the two stables out back. Gripping at the dirt with his hoofs, this sent fresh snow into his open eyes. The dendrite flurries skipped across the landscape whisking up spruce, scots pine, and birch twigs within its frostbitten grasp. Pinpricks brushed up against his arms and his cheekbones. Thus, they grew hot and pink like a flamingo. Leather hides and straps were fashioned around the artic stags inner thighs, ribcage, and neck, softly. Keflavik was engraved on his nameplate, strung in metal chaining towards the side of his neck. He stepped aside to continue to pack his long sled. The provisions he would need – started to add up, into his allotted time. With the torches illuminating the surrounding around his perimeter, Saulen finished with supplies, all the while watched the snowbrush into the wind and thought he saw a snow bee.
Submitted by: Cassi Cegielski