7
The Meeting of the Seasons by Carrot
The Meeting of the Seasons is a spectacular event to behold. Animals come from all over to watch it, and it is the only event where it no longer matters if you are predator or prey, reptile or mammal, two-legged or four-legged. All animals here are equal.
Birds perch in trees, some nearly falling, exhausted from their long flights, others twittering amongst their flock. Ground animals are circled around the clearing, some even wading in the river that cuts through one side, glittering in the sun. Some are asleep between tree roots, others in bushes, some even just curled up. Others are waiting alone impatiently for what's to come, and still others are gossiping and rough housing while they wait.
Soon, however, silence rushes through the animals like a wave and they all fall silent and attentive. Those that were asleep wake up blearily, then instantly snap to attention when they realize what's going on.
Fall walks out from west side of the forest, red fur glistening he steps into the sunlit clearing. Slowly, slyly, he walks forward to the middle, then stops. Fall yawns, showing off all his tiny, but sharp, white teeth and pink tongue, and stretching his legs, back arching in the air. Then he sits down, daintily curling his bushy tail over his paws. The fox, named Fall, was given his name from his personality, just like the rest of them. Fall is sneaky, sneaking up on you with its red and orange mottled leaves, like his fur when he's running through the dappled sunlight of the forest. Fall is also warm, like his fur, but with chilly breezes sending tingles up your spine just like his gaze. Fall has a lot of fun scaring people, like during the one holiday those humans celebrate called, I believe, Halloween.
thwack.
Anyone who's been to the Meeting of the Seasons before recognizes the sound instantly, but for those who haven't they don't have to wait long. Out hops Spring, tail thwacking the ground behind her. She quickly hops over to the center of the clearing, opposite Fall and nods him a welcome. Fall only grins in response.
Spring was chosen for her cheerful manner, always rising above the dreary cold of Winter, hopping along with her optimism and cheering people up wherever she might wander. Joey, her baby, is constantly popping his head out tentatively, just like the grass peeking through the remnants of snow and ice. When Joey believes it to be safe, and not too cold or not too hot, he jumps outs of her pouch and plays with others children. Spring loves to hide eggs around the human holiday, Easter, and finds it amusing they believe it to be a bunny. Her grey fur is the color of slushy snow in spring, mixed in with the dirt and gravel. She's very motherly, and animals never object when she comes up to say hello. No one can hold a grudge against her for long, but they wouldn't need to because Spring never does anything worthy of holding a grudge, unlike Winter.
Speaking of Winter, here she comes! From the north comes a great giant polar bear, her white fur standing out among the greens of the forest, practically leaving a trail of frost in her wake. Animals hurry to clear a path for her, shivering as she passes. She comes up the other two seasons and sits heavily on the ground to wait. She's very cold and distant, and if asked she wouldn't even let you have a tiny minnow from her private lake of huge fish if you were starving, much less care if you were dangling from the edge of a cliff. She'd just stare at you with her cold, emotionless gaze even as you fell. Her white fur blends in perfectly with the blizzards she loves, and adores sneaking up on animals and humans alike and giving them a deadly surprise with her deceptively innocent snowstorms. She's constantly in a bad mood, and if you get to close she'll growl and rip you apart, if you're lucky. If not, she'll give you a slow and painful death, and you'd only wish you could die.
Now, from the south Summer swims up from the river. She splashes innocent animals in her wake, jumping out of the water in glee. She loves the water, which is good because as a dolphin is kind of required to. Summer is the most playful of them all, never taking anything seriously. She loves basking in the sun, and you can always find her with a sunburn on her back. While she hates sunburns, she puts up with it because she couldn't last a day without at least four hours of sitting in the sun. She loves water activities, and invites every animal she sees to come play with her, and of course they can't refuse her childish innocence. She's rarely sad, but when she is no animal can resist going to comfort her, feeling sad themselves. The sun and water are her two most favorite things in life, and she can never decide what she wants more so constantly there will be times where she's splashing everyone so much to share her enthusiasm we're practically drowning, and other times when we're invited to sunbath with her we are almost roasted alive.
All the seasons look at each other, silent. Then they all turn and leave, and the clearing is engulfed in a cacophony of noise as animals talk excitedly to each other and leave hurriedly so as not to be caught in the storm of animals later.
As Fall's gaze sweeps across the hushed crowd, from the east comes faint sounds.
Thump, thwack. Thump, thwack. Thump, thwack.
Anyone who's been to the Meeting of the Seasons before recognizes the sound instantly, but for those who haven't they don't have to wait long. Out hops Spring, tail thwacking the ground behind her. She quickly hops over to the center of the clearing, opposite Fall and nods him a welcome. Fall only grins in response.
Spring was chosen for her cheerful manner, always rising above the dreary cold of Winter, hopping along with her optimism and cheering people up wherever she might wander. Joey, her baby, is constantly popping his head out tentatively, just like the grass peeking through the remnants of snow and ice. When Joey believes it to be safe, and not too cold or not too hot, he jumps outs of her pouch and plays with others children. Spring loves to hide eggs around the human holiday, Easter, and finds it amusing they believe it to be a bunny. Her grey fur is the color of slushy snow in spring, mixed in with the dirt and gravel. She's very motherly, and animals never object when she comes up to say hello. No one can hold a grudge against her for long, but they wouldn't need to because Spring never does anything worthy of holding a grudge, unlike Winter.
Speaking of Winter, here she comes! From the north comes a great giant polar bear, her white fur standing out among the greens of the forest, practically leaving a trail of frost in her wake. Animals hurry to clear a path for her, shivering as she passes. She comes up the other two seasons and sits heavily on the ground to wait. She's very cold and distant, and if asked she wouldn't even let you have a tiny minnow from her private lake of huge fish if you were starving, much less care if you were dangling from the edge of a cliff. She'd just stare at you with her cold, emotionless gaze even as you fell. Her white fur blends in perfectly with the blizzards she loves, and adores sneaking up on animals and humans alike and giving them a deadly surprise with her deceptively innocent snowstorms. She's constantly in a bad mood, and if you get to close she'll growl and rip you apart, if you're lucky.
If not, she'll give you a slow and painful death, and you'd only wish you could die.
Now, from the south Summer swims up from the river. She splashes innocent animals in her wake, jumping out of the water in glee. She loves the water, which is good because as a dolphin is kind of required to. Summer is the most playful of them all, never taking anything seriously. She loves basking in the sun, and you can always find her with a sunburn on her back. While she hates sunburns, she puts up with it because she couldn't last a day without at least four hours of sitting in the sun. She loves water activities, and invites every animal she sees to come play with her, and of course they can't refuse her childish innocence. She's rarely sad, but when she is no animal can resist going to comfort her, feeling sad themselves. The sun and water are her two most favorite things in life, and she can never decide what she wants more so constantly there will be times where she's splashing everyone so much to share her enthusiasm we're practically drowning, and other times when we're invited to sunbath with her we are almost roasted alive.
All the seasons look at each other, silent. Then they all turn and leave, and the clearing is engulfed in a cacophony of noise as animals talk excitedly to each other and leave hurriedly so as not to be caught in the storm of animals later.
Yet, it remains easier to find fault with that empty half than to appreciate the fizzling joy of its yang.
The yin is what remains when the gaseous bubbles have all been released--gobbled up by the ever voracious air.
Unsolicited, it remains beautiful.
But nothing stays the same forever.
In my absence, once again the foreboding glass has changed.
The fizzling liquid has reared its sparkling head, rising like high tide to crash its foam at the summit of the green glass.
Joy fills with uncomparable speed, filling every pore with its inherent energy, its hopes and aspirations to do better, to be free.
A beaming smile tears free from its confines, brightening everything around it, despite the fact that the receptacle’s own luminescence has been drowned out; its only remains a sickly, vague thing that barely extrudes onto the surface.
Filled to the brim, everything is different. But nothing can run on in such an exuberant way forever.
Such fullness gives way to emptiness, running in pursuit of the the very thing you run from.
The glass raises to my weary lips, and the bubbles prickle at my throat as I drink . . .
Drink…
Drink . . ., unrelenting in the need to fill the gaping hole that has deceptively stretched its maw once again.
With an empty clunk, the green glass makes contact with the surface of the table once more.
There is a finality in it, a bitterness that one can only attribute to the bubbles that had previously brought such joy.
The colored emerald shadow stretches long against my arm again, mocking with its quiet untold mysteries, reeling victoriously in my shock at being in this same position yet again.
The phases of the glass may be ephemeral, more or less, as changing as the moons rise and fall of the water.
But the green glass remains unchanged, solidly persistent forevermore.
And the emptiness lurks with it.