500 words: winter

(this one is short but, um, kind of dark)

Winter

Even as March surrendered and fell blissfully into April’s arms and the days grew from short to long, Alissa quietly, sadly, faded away into winter. As summer emerged from spring with warmth and brightness, Alissa’s days grew colder, with lengthening shadows, bitter winds, fallen leaves, and eventually, a deep chilly darkness with no moon and no stars. When people spoke to her, it was as if she were deep under the water, beneath the ice, their voices everywhere and nowhere, all sound and no words.

The less she understood, the less people spoke, and the more the darkness pressed on her the less she left her apartment. As the days once again turned from long to short, from summer into fall, Alissa froze and cracked and blew away in the dark and the wind and no one noticed she was gone.