Hollow

The wind was picking up in the growing night. The creature could feel the storm that it brought. The snow was steady and light, but soon it would make it impossible to see. The creature was looking for something, pulled from it’s home at the feeling of it. There was a need.  A hollowness to be filled and it needed to be found before the storm made the forest impassable.

The snow crunched beneath the creatures feet, the only noise but the wind in trees. Everything was shades of purple and blue with only shape and no detail, but it was enough for the creature to find its way. It felt no cold though its feet were bare. Its horns were the empty gnarled branches of the trees. It’s hair was shadows dragging along the snow and sometimes dancing with its kin. Its robes were the deep purple in the space between the trees and its skin was the snow itself.

Each step it took was erased as it passed and so was its countenance that even a second glance would make it only a part of the forest.

A flicker of light in the distance, a lantern hanging on a door frame, revealed what The creature sought. A woman stood by the door piling wood onto her arms. The wood was scattered around the snow freshly chopped in preparation for the coming storm. Her breath came out in clouds and her cheeks were red. 

She piled the last of the wood in her arms and froze as the creature stepped into the light. The two of them watched each other for a time. The woman did not show fear nor did she show awe. There was only the blankness, the hollow, too much like the winter night, but there was also an understanding. 

The woman sniffed at the cold. “Best come inside then.”

The creature walked slowly to the door, ducking to allow it’s horns through. It could not feel the heat on its skin much like it could not feel the cold. The colors in the room matched the heat. There was the color of the trees, but also the fur of an Elk and the brightness of berries. The creature was out of place in this space. 

The woman piled her wood against the wall, the sound loud in the smallness of the room, before retrieving her lamp. She blew it out and found its home on a nail at the door. She did not look at the creature again as she went about taking off the outer layers of her clothes and then her shoes. 

The woman went to the stove, putting in a new log before resting a kettle of water on the stove top. She rustled around in her cabinets until the kettle whistled. She poured the water over tea and handed a mug to the creature before sitting at a desk by the stove where a typewriter rested. The creature watched and patiently sipped it’s tea as the woman lit a few candles.

It was only when the woman began working at her typewriter that the creature settled into a chair close by. Soon the creature finished its tea, resting the cup on the floor. Not long after that, the woman finished her first page.

“Read this.” 

The creature took the page she offered and it read silently, carefully, before setting it gently on the coffee table. The woman continued to hand the creature pages and it continued to read them setting each one neatly into a pile. 

The candle at her desk had worked down to half its height when the woman finally stood. She stretched and took their mugs to the wash tub before turning to the creature. 

“I am going to bed. Don’t let the stove go out.”

The creature nodded and the woman climbed into bed. The fire crackled and the wind howled. Every once in a while the creature would rise up from the chair and put a new log on the fire before sitting down again.

The light of the night was not much different than the light of the morning. By this time, if the woman had opened her door, she would have found it blocked by two feet of snow, but she had suspected as much when she went to bed. 

In the morning she made more tea and some breakfast before sitting at her typewriter again. The creature and the woman fell into the same routine as the night before, typing and reading, and piling. The cabin echoed with the clank of the keys and the howl of the wind. The gentle rustle of paper laced with the crackle of the fire.

Occasionally, the woman would talk to herself, get up and pace, or go make some more tea. The next day was much the same and so was the day after that. The piles of paper grew larger filling the coffee table. 

It was on the fourth day that the woman stopped and turned to look at the piles like she was not sure how they had gotten there. She turned to the creature, then got up and made more tea. She handed the creature a mug then sat in the chair beside it sipping her tea and staring at the paper. When she finished her tea she put her mug in the wash tub.

“I’m going to bed. Don’t let the stove go out.”

The woman slept longer than she had any other day that the creature had been there, but it kept the stove going until she awoke. She did not go to her typewriter after she made breakfast. She sat at the table and stared out the frosted window into the snow beyond.

When she was finished eating she settled into the chair beside the creature, wrapped herself in a blanket, and stared at the piles of paper. 

“Which do I read first?”

The creature picked up a pile delicately and handed it to the woman who shifted in her chair preparing. This was the story of a life. It was her life where she felt the need for words and explanation. She read through the pages a pencil in hand and an intent in her mind, but as she read the pencil did not fall to the paper.

The woman finished the pages and looked up at the creature in confusion. It simply handed her the next pile which she eagerly took and continued to read. All that could be heard was the swish of paper in silence of focus and intent. The creature continued to hand piles to the woman and made her tea when her mug was empty. The woman read through the day, smiling softly at some points and tearing up at others. 

The mind is a fragile thing and at times its most dangerous enemy is itself. The mind tells itself lies that it can only believe because it is more terrifying to think that the mind cannot trust itself to tell the truth. The woman’s words had been filled with a misguided trust of her mind. She had narrowed her perspective until she could not trust the world to give her the truth. The lies of her mind had scraped her bare until she was a shell of herself. 

She had typed and typed in an attempt to fill the hollowness, but writing is emptying. Reading is filling. 

The creature had not changed the woman’s story. It had only shifted it one person over. In each pile, the woman was given a new perspective. The woman’s story became not the story of her but the story of those she touched. It was the story of a side character who made an impact in many lives, small and large. 

The woman read into the night and when she was finished she felt raw. The truth outside her mind was not soft and delicate. It was bright and searing. 

She stared into the flames of the stove as the creature gave her a fresh mug of tea and cookies from a tin she had shared with it the night before. The creature sat and waited for her to finish her mug and her cookies. She did not say anything as she got up and went to bed, but the creature made sure the fire did not go out anyway.

As soon as she was asleep the creature set to work binding the pages together and covering them with bits of wood. The creature was finished before the woman awoke. It set the book on the kitchen table, put a few more logs on the fire, and went out the door. 

The sun was brightening the edge of the sky. The world was motionless in the heavy quiet brought by the snow. The air was crisp and clean. The creature's feet did not sink far into the deep snow, but as it walked, its shadow hair trailing behind, it left no trace that it had been there at all.