Summer Again

Those were the times. They became these memories that sustain these dull days as they pass almost indistinguishable from each other. The world grows darker, closer, what once was distance and possibility is now a mist-shrouded horizon, close enough almost to touch. There were distant hills out there, back in those sunnier days. The possibility of distance opened up the world and there was a chance of some new unknown land beyond those distant hills.

Now, though, those hills are gone, lost in the dark of the ever-increasing night or hidden behind the curtains of mist, fog and rain that make us huddle here, waiting.

We wait and we wonder if the summers will ever return to this land.

In the past, when we thought those old gods mattered, when we believed they had the power to change things, we would pray: beg and entreat, the gods to intercede and to bring back the summers to this, their chosen land.

We know now that this is no longer a chosen land: now the winters grow and spread to steal the rest of the year. We know the gods do not look down on us any longer – if they ever did.

We know we are alone here, in this cruel, cold world and we wonder if any of us – not just the old, frail ones will ever see a summer again.