Nothing Gold Can Stay

The forest is still. All sounds are muffled by the thick quilt of snow draped upon its floor: the squirrel’s scampering, the sigh of wings, the eagle’s call. The only movement is the wind which dusts the treetops with a silken rustle, darting lithely across each white-touched leaf and brushing past the narrow road. But it soon strays from the path, which glimmers pearly gold beneath the falling dusk; it is free, unrestrained, eternally wandering amongst the stars. 

The stars! Subtly they shine from behind the prickled branches, unassuming yet ablaze with cold fire. It is said that the stars are Nature’s silver ink upon a Stygian scroll, noting the brume-laid millennia before Adam lived and the traipsing centuries afterwards; they are the celestial record-keepers, the scribes, the ancient historians. 

Each star, an ink-blot; each planet, punctuation. 

And if we turn back time but a few pages in a hundred year-long chapter, we find the tale of the old man whose footprints, like blue-grey shadows, now wander along the snowy path. We read his story—so fleeting, so ephemeral, in the eyes of the cosmos—and understand this lonely figure beneath the omniscient sky. We feel love, hate, triumph; we laugh, weep, sing; we perceive what it is to be human. 

Ah, how burdensome it must be! 

You who blow hot and cold in one breath, who stab your friends and heal your enemies; you who hate because of love, who war in the name of peace. Oh, you humans! How you must resent the heavens!

His story begins in the forest.

The wind swept from bronze-wrought clouds to dance briefly in the boy’s hair, who was walking on the forest path. It was fond of the young child, for he came quietly and peacefully and alone: a welcome change from the boisterous herds of men who sometimes came, flaunting sticks that shot out death. It blew the tassled ends of the boy’s scarf into his eyes playfully, then fluttered off into the sky. 

The boy shivered, pulling his coat around him—the day was cold—and sat beneath the burnished foliage to eat his lunch. 

Small, tan-feathered birds gathered around the boy, pecking at the bread crumbs he tossed on the ground for them. They watched him curiously and made amicable noises; a ruffle of wings, a trilling note. The boy whistled back. When one landed on his head, he laughed and let it stay, crumbling more of his bread in his hands. 

When the boy was finished, he leaned against a maple tree; it creaked and spread its firework branches above him willingly. It nestled the boy in its gnarled roots, and as his eyes closed, it began to speak in the very ancient language of the forest. It sang him to sleep in the quiet purling of the river, and the percussive whispers of the leaves.

As the months progressed, the boy came often. He would sit beneath the old tree and read a book, or go fishing, or search for pinecones. The forest welcomed him. It sheltered him beneath its gilt canopy, and thrust its flashing fish like quicksilver his way, knowing that he would toss each one back into the babbling creek.

But nothing gold can stay, and neither could the boy.

He grew as all humans did, rapidly and with foolish haste. And as he grew, the time between his visits grew longer and longer until he came only once a month, then once a season, then once a year. 

One day, he appeared holding the hand of a girl his age. She had eyes like the ether and a hair like shafts of sunlight. When she laughed, she called forth silver bells. When she spoke, she put the nightingale to shame.

The boy’s eyes drank in her beauty greedily. He did not notice the crystal glittering of the creek, nor the poppies like folded rubies budding in the grass. The two of them carved their initials into the wide trunk of his tree together. They kissed beneath its awning. 

But the observing forest knew that love was the bane of man—it had a way of precipitating blindness even in the most clear-sighted of people. A week later, his visits stopped.

The forest was hollow and silent without his carefree presence; the river stagnant, the foliage muted. Each season passed, winter and spring and summer and fall, in brief flashes of natural glory. Years slipped by, one after another, each a blink of an eye to the ancient stars above. The boy did not come, and the forest began to forget him—he was mortal, after all, and the forest was forever.

The stars did not. The stars remembered, as they always did.

The boy returned as a man, on a night when the moon was crescent and gleaming ivory. It had been ten years since his last visit. 

He was alone this time. There were circles beneath his eyes and he was in need of a shave, but when he heard the creek murmuring his step seemed to lighten. Had his view of the world changed once more, momentarily back to the boyish innocence? Was this what time did to humans?

It mattered little to the forest, who rejoiced in the crickets’ melody and the spirited wind. Nature held no grudges; the old maple tree embraced him as he leaned against it. He traced the initials that he and his lover had carved into its trunk all those years ago, and suddenly his eyes flashed with anger. The tree drew back slightly as the man flicked out a knife, scratching out the girl’s letter aggressively. 

Yes, love was the bane of man.

The man came frequently after that, although his childhood energy had left him. It was only a year later when he regained it to some degree, however—ah, the capriciousness of man—and returned to the forest with the young woman by his side.

It was the girl from so long ago, but her silly giggles had turned into warm smiles. She had only grown in beauty since the forest had last seen her. Yet this time was different; this time, the man was not blinded by his love. He loved her, yes. But he loved her with his eyes open.

The man had grown in wisdom. The stars, watching him bend to one knee, were fleetingly proud of humans. The way that they were so weak, yet still strove to become stronger. The way they rose from the ashes, no matter how many times they had gone up in flames. The way they resisted death, fiercely, stubbornly, foolishly.

Two years after the man married, the forest was introduced to another girl. This one was tiny, waving her little fists in the air as she squirmed in her mother’s arms. The forest rejoiced, the leaves dancing, clouds scattered before the softly shining sun. The small girl giggled—a beautiful sound—as the wind tousled her tuft of hair. A delicate jade-winged butterfly flitted onto the tip of her minute nose. She blinked slowly, flaunting effulgent sapphires, and sneezed.

The man and his wife treasured their daughter. So did the forest.

The small family walked the forest path regularly, laughing and content. The man aged happily, his wife and daughter by his side. The baby grew into a girl. The girl grew into a teenager.

But nothing gold can stay, and neither could the man’s daughter.

She never reached adulthood. She stayed forever a teenage girl with short blonde hair, immortal only in photographs and memories and the stories of the stars. The family, as a whole, never came to the forest again.

But the man did. He stumbled into the refuge of the woods a week after his daughter’s death, collapsing beneath the old tree. Its round leaves, trembling in the lonely wind, were dark silhouettes above him. Through their shadow-curtain the pale moon flickered, its court of silver stars dimming contritely. An owl hooted quietly as it flew into the night: the forest’s own death-knell, ringing solemnly in mourning.

The man broke down in tears.

He came once more with his wife some time after, but something had changed. They walked just an inch too far apart. They spoke little. The woman, lovely face pinched in grief, had her arms hugged tightly around herself. The man was stoic.

The wind, as if in urging, blew into the side of the man’s face wildly. He paid it no heed.

The stars glimmered, disappointed.

The man never came with his wife again. He wished to reconcile, the stars noted, but wished too late. There was an accident. The wife passed on, achingly beautiful in her throes of death.

The man—old now—grew sick. He recovered. He continued to live his life alone, haunted by his regrets, coming back nearly every day to the old maple tree.

The forest loved him still. And he still loved the forest.

He coughed up blood one day while fishing, the front of his shirt splattered glistening crimson. The old man looked at it, alarmed, before rushing from the woods. He did not come back for a week.

When he returned, he was for the last time changed. His step was slow. His hands shook. Yet his eyes were peaceful, their youthful energy gone and replaced by calm weariness. The forest knew that he was not long for this earth. So did the old man.

He wandered along the path he had tread so many times now, soaking in the colors, the melodies, the lingering touch of the wind. He listened to the brook sing, the warbling notes of a swallow’s song. He saw the scribing stars, faint and only just beginning to ignite silver. He watched as the sun trickled towards the horizon like molten gold, shining gloriously in its final moments, setting the curling edges of the parchment earth on rutilant fire. The sky put on its most beautiful display of brilliant flames and dusty blues and hopeful greys, the forest’s last gift for the man that had faithfully loved it.

As the flames died down into a smoky dawn, the boy walked slowly towards the edge of the world.

Snow began to fall.