Winter and Spring

The Writer’s Cramp
Prompt 2-27-2021
In your story or poem, write about someone who is dreading the approach of spring.

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Spring is the reminder of every horrible thing that has ever, and will ever, happen to me. Spring is how the universe puts me in my place. Reminds me that what I do doesn’t matter. That my power is limited, if it exists at all.

My hatred for it has grown. Meanwhile everyone around me gawks and moans, and starts to foam at the fucking mouth. They like it because they’re supposed to. It’s all “flowers” and “beauty” and “rebirth” and all that other bullshit. Maybe I’d feel that way if I wasn’t me, too. If I hadn’t been through what I’ve been through. Maybe I’m a little jealous they can enjoy it. I wonder what that’s like.

He always hated the snow, just like everyone else in this god damn town. Complaining about how slippery it was, how shoveling was a pain, how it was so cold. But all I saw was the way the trees fatten and sag, coated in a fresh layer of glistening, pure crystal. The way sound is muted, so that when you stand in it and hold your breath, you can finally hear what real peace sounds like. The way a cardinal’s red stands out against the clean grays and whites. Maybe that was my first hint that I didn’t belong. Should I have left, then?

He always loved how green spring was. How it smelled crisp and clean, fragrant from blooming flowers. The gray washed out by green carpets of fresh growth with splashes of pink and purple and orange wildflowers. He called it mother nature’s masterpiece. Maybe it’s beautiful, but beautiful scenery doesn’t stop horrible things from happening. My green feels like envy, queasiness, and disaster. It was the only color I saw on that spring night twenty years ago. Why would I ever want to be surrounded by a color like that?

He killed me in the spring. His envy finally spilled over, a bathtub too full. I remember I felt queasy, near the end. Staring up at his green eyes, giving off their own light, hovering separately from his face above a green collared shirt. His arms straight, his hands ending in a too-small ‘o’ around my neck. Disaster.

I never got to graduate. I never got to leave and see what else there is out there. I never got the chance to do any of it. Now all I can do is stay in this fucking town, watching the yearly cycle. Bitch about the snow, praise the spring, repeat. Over, and over, and over. I wish I could tell them the winter is the only time I don’t feel like I’m dead.