The first story of the new year. I’m overall pretty happy with it, and hopefully it’s a good omen for what’s to come. I can’t say it’s a happy story, because, well, I’m not sure that’s even in my vocaulary. Even still, I think there is some happiness in the darkness, and I’m sure you’ll agree.
Thanks for reading.
Artwork by Benjamin NAZON
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/L3JxGA
DISCLAIMER: This work has not been edited beyond what is done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time and keep it as raw as possible.
The Story
Beneath a leaning tree, snow flurries hazing the world in crystalline glow, Private Don Jamison’s blood kept him warm. It was a blanket that started at his chest and wrapped itself under his heels. He had left a trail of threads, he saw, down the hill that lead out of the forest. He wasn’t sure who was coming, but he knew someone was.
His rifle was made of ice, inside and out. Still, it had some use. The firmness of it against his chest reminded him that he was alive. More than the blood that quietly flowed from him. He wished it were louder. Loud like the snow blower old Hixley, his neighbor used on weekend mornings to carve a path from his door to the road.
Don Jamison saw the old man step through the trees, fighting with the machine like he always did. A crooked cigarette dangled from corner of his mouth, accenting his curses with puffs of smoke.
Beneath an eave spilling frost, the sky pale and bright and clear, Donnie Jamison’s gloves, jacket, and hat kept him warm. He peeked around the trash can to get a better look at the old man, but the fence between their houses was snarled with dead vines, so the old man looked like he was battling a nest of spiders, which would have been pretty cool.
“A dollar says he doesn’t get it going,” Chris said from behind him, breath smelling of egg farts.
Chris had bet a dollar every time and lost every time, which had allowed Donnie to amass quite the comic collection.
Before Donnie could answer, the snow blower roared and a white wave crashed over the fence, to which he and Chris dove under, hugging their plastic rifles with their backs to the oncoming soldiers.
“Charge!” they yelled in unison.
Beneath a sky of endless stars, on a well trodden path to Pickman’s Hill, Donald Jamison kept Bethany Wilson warm. She was tucked under his arm, scowling with shivers.
“Let’s go back,” she said. “It’s late. And my dad will kill me if I’m not back by ten.”
Donald kissed her forehead and pulled her tighter. “We’re almost there.”
She mumbled a protest, but the wind picked up and whistled through the trees that had risen along the path, so he didn’t hear. When her shivering didn’t stop, he undid his jacket and gave it to her, laughing at her bundled form, which made her the proportions of his Aunt May, who was pushing two-hundred pounds.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, and that’s when he saw how pretty she really was. Her porcelain face was rosy in all the right places, her brows arched inquisitively at his laughter, above those eyes that made his chest ache with happiness and sadness at the same time.
He tugged her ahead until he crested the place he wanted to show her. He turned her around in front of him, hugging her from behind. He wanted to see her face when she saw it but also wanted her to have a clear view.
The valley opened up in front of them. A border of trees drew their eyes to a dark spot in the mountainside. It was only dark for a moment more. Perfect timing.
When he felt her sharp inhale, he knew he had done right. The dark spot on the mountainside was dark no longer. Light bloomed from it, carried by the snowflakes neither could see until now. Across the entire valley.
“It looks like diamonds,” she said.
It did. A thousand thousand diamonds, maybe more, all their fractal detail reflecting and refracting something so simple as the light on a train to bejewel the world.
“I love it,” she said.
Beneath a weeping willow, fireflies swarming over a sunset he couldn’t place the color of, a baby boy of twelve months kept Don Jamison warm.
“Should have named him Cole,” Don said to Beth. “The little sucker is making me sweat.”
“Good thing,” Beth said. “Summer’s colder than usual this year.”
“When aren’t you cold?” Don said with a chuckle.
“I’ll remember that when you try to sneak those cold feet of yours over to mine later tonight.”
Donnie Jr. cooed, pointing a fat finger at a cloud of fireflies that had dared to invade Tucker’s territory. The border collie growled and snapped at them. They divided with each bite, forming into independent globes that Tucker couldn’t keep up with. Defeated, Tucker plopped onto the grass and panted away his frustration.
Then the fireflies flew farther over the field opposite their house, reforming into two tightly packed orbs. Their impressive light was only matched by two neighbor boys running down the street with Roman Candles held high.
Time slowed. The fireflies merged with the Roman Candles’ flames, and the sunset simplified into a singular color. That color was blue.
Beneath a leaning tree, the blanket of blood now a blanket of snow, Private Don Jamison wasn’t warm. A cold like this he’d never felt before. Not even the time Chris dared him to jump into the snow blower’s wave in his underwear. Not even the time he’d fallen through the frozen lake, showing off his skateless ice skating moves to Beth. Not even the winter day his father had died, which delayed the burial far too long, and Don’s dreams were plagued with the decomposing body of his father desperately digging his own grave with skeletal fingers, because he was tired of waiting, too.
No, Private Don Jamison couldn’t compare this to anything. But amid the blue, there was gold. He wondered how the two boys with the Roman Candle’s had made it this far. He wondered if Donnie Jr. would ever remember the fireflies that day.
“Wondering does you no good,” his father used to say. “Knowing is what counts.”
Private Don Jamison took his father’s advice and stopped wondering. He looked around for diamonds or fireflies and waited for what he knew was coming.