A Vision of Spring

The winter started with a crash and ended in a whisper. The snow dripped off the leaves like tears cascading down a face. Nature slowly came out of their hidings to bask in the sun. The residue snow scattered the grass in hills with watery pools at their surfaces. The air was crisp and inviting from months of being in the frigid winter. A new day was approaching, you could just feel it. 

Little Kate bounced off her twin sized bed to greet Spring in all its glory. She bounded down the stairs so hard that one would think an elephant rather than an 8 year old girl lived there. Her excitable nature endeared yet sometimes frightened her peers and loved ones. Kate’s curiosity has always landed her in complicated predicaments, like when she accidentally wandered off while walking the dog all because she was following her imagination and lost track of time. 

“Kate, don’t forget breakfast” the sweet sound of a young mother rang down the hall. Her honey eyes, which Kate had inherited, held so much warmth like a flaming ember. 

The little girl sat idly at the kitchen table while her mother sat bowls of cereal in front of the two of them.  Kate propelled herself into the cereal with her enormous appetite while her legs swung playfully back and forth. 

“It’s the first day of Spring,” her mother said in a warm tone.

    “There’s still so much snow out,” Kate said. “I wish summer would come faster.”

    “You should savor spring while it’s here. You’ll miss it when it’s 100 degrees out, you know.” 

    “No I won’t. I’ll have so much fun this summer! I’ll eat ice cream all day and spend all my time outside.” 

Her mother chuckled at the young girl’s ambitions. 

“Don’t you want to appreciate what you have now though? One day, you’ll look back and you’ll wish to live like you do now” the mother said. 

“Absolutely not,” Kate retorted. “I won’t miss being seven at all! I’ll love being eight!” 

“That’s a positive attitude at least. What do you want to do for your birthday next week anyway?” 

“A big cake and Layla to be there of course.” 

“That sounds like a plan. I’ll order the cake now. What flavor: chocolate or strawberry?” 

“Strawberry,” they both said, smiling. Sweet yet tart were the flavors Kate savored. 

“Can I play with Layla today?” 

“Sure, just wear your coat when you go outside. It’s still cold.”  

Kate leapt off her chair to retrieve her coat before speeding out the door to fetch Layla. Her white coat shimmered against the melting snow. The patches of wet grass exposed themselves to the sun on her journey. The drops of dew on each blade of grass, perfectly reflected the sunlight making the green seem brighter. Kate pranced to Layla’s house and with her small hand, knocked on the front door delicately. 

“Hello Kate,” the kind woman at the door said. 

“Hello Mrs. Richards, can Layla play today?” 

“She was just about to run over to your house to ask you the same thing. Come in, dear.” 

Kate stepped into the house as her boots thumped on the matted carpet. The air was warm and it enveloped Kate like a motherly embrace. Layla’s house was like a second home to Kate in its inviting nature and playful interior. 

    A small girl with amber blonde locks, pranced towards Kate as a ballerina would. Her curls bounced as she trotted, reminding Kate of springs. The two girls, practically attached at the hip, had been the closest of friends since their early childhood after stumbling upon each other at the school playground. Partners in crime, practical sisters were just some of the phrases used to describe the two girls. Eventually the two friends learned to wear those phrases as badges of honor, parading their ultimate friendship.

    After a wave of goodbye from Mrs. Richards, the friends set off on a journey. Their matching white coats reflected the sunlight, making them glow in the crisp afternoon. They passed a cherry tree that a neighbor had planted years before. The tree dropped its residue snow from its leaves onto the burgeoning grass. 

    “It looks like that tree is crying,” Layla said. Ever the artistic soul, Layla found beauty and humanity in everything she saw.

    “Trees can’t cry. My teacher said so” Kate replied bluntly.

    “I only said it looks like it’s crying. It isn’t actually crying” said Layla. 

    “If I were a tree, I would cry,” Kate said absentmindedly. 

    “Why? I wouldn’t, I would love to sit in nature all the time. I’d be so happy” Layla said. 

    “You can’t move anywhere though,” Kate said. “You just have to watch everyone play without you. That sounds like a horrible life.” 

    Layla didn’t reply as she kicked at the melting snow on the ground. The snow, once pure white, was stained with footprints and dirt. It would never be pure white again.  

    “Let’s go over there,” Kate declared, pointing to the darkening woods at the edge of the trail. 

    “Why?” Layla asked. “It’s dark and cold in there. We should stay in the sun.”

    “No! I heard some boys from school found stuff in there. We have to go see!” 

    “What did they find?” Layla asked.

    “I don’t know. They wouldn’t tell me, but they said if I wasn’t a baby, I would go see for myself.”

    Kate sped up, making squeaky footprints in the melting snow and blemishing it even further. Layla stood watching Kate run ahead of her. Looking down, Layla saw she was standing in a patch of grass surrounded by snow. Letting her curiosity get the better of her, she raced to catch up with Kate.

    “Wait for me!” Layla shouted towards Kate, their boots crunching the ground beneath them and the taste of the crisp air on their tongues. 

    Together, they trekked deep in the forest as the sunlight waned with each step they took. The snow grew sparse into the depth of the forest with small snowbeds scattered randomly about. Their white coats, once glowing, darkened as they walked further; the white deepened into a light grey. 

    “What exactly are we looking for?” Layla asked. 

    “I don’t know. The boys just said it was like finding treasure. Maybe if we look around more…” 

    The two girls wandered around the patch where they stood, looking for anything unusual. The crunch of the leftover autumn leaves followed their every step and the light dusting of snow laid on the ground. Kate wandered in a direction her curiosity had led to. It was a barren area where dead leaves laid scattered across the ground. A snowbed was in the direct center of this area, water from the trees above dripping directly onto the center of it. Kate scanned the snowbed with her bright eyes, getting ready to turn away in disinterest until she saw it. 

    There in the center of the snowbed, with drops of water dripping on it, was a singular hand. What the hand was attached to, Kate did not know. It was weathered and stained with dirt, and its knuckles were spattered with the unmistakable color of red. Blood.  

She slowly crept forward as if stuck in a gelatinous substance. Her footsteps echoed throughout the forest as she grew closer and closer to the snowbed.  With a deep breath, she peered over the edge, into the center of the snowbed. Her eyes widened, she felt her hair stand on end, and a queasy wave of fear showered over her. 

Before young Kate, was a dead body with stains of blood that polluted the rigid body.  His hair, matted and chewed, was strewn across his skull in patches like it was ripped from his follicles. His complexion, blue and spotty, glared back at Kate. His mouth was closed in a thin line and his eyes opened and glazed over, stared into nothingness.  Kate took all this in, but her attention was especially focused on the man’s red body and the multiple gaping holes in it.

The chill quivered throughout Kate’s body, reaching her toes and making her feel as if the temperature had lowered by a thousand degrees.  Her mouth moved before she knew what to do. A small croak came out like a meek little tadpole before her lips closed again. Her mouth opened once more, and from the bottom of her lungs she screamed her friend’s name in anguish. 

Layla, alarmed by the sudden interruption to the silence, went running to Kate’s direction. Her white coat became a blur as she raced towards death. 

“What is it?” Layla asked, but before Kate could answer, Layla’s eyes rested on the dead body before the girls.  An evident sensation ran up both of their spines as their visages darkened. 

The sound of dripping rang throughout the forest, but it wasn’t the trees. It was Kate’s tears streaming down her face as the image of the dead man imprinted into the back of her mind. The hot tears dripped onto the snow, melting it.

“What do we do? Was this what the boys found?” Layla said, her voice quivering. 

“I don’t know” Kate choked out in a muffled cry. “We have to tell someone!” 

Hesitantly Layla said, “I’ll go tell my mom! Stay here so I know where to find it!” 

She sprinted out of the forest, leaving Kate standing there before the body. “It.” The body was an it, but probably not that long ago it was a fully alive human being, Kate thought. She did not recognize the man’s face, yet she felt a sense of familiarity to him as he lay motionless.  

Every inch of Kate’s body trembled with each passing breath. Every breath she took smelled like death, a smell she never experienced before. She had not moved the entire time since she discovered the body. She was terrified to move, like her entire life depended on her idleness. A couple minutes passed and she could hear echoes of Layla’s voice shouting directions to her mother. Finally Kate knelt down and stared up at the sky. The blue comforted her, but the thought of what was below her line of vision was enough to send fear into her body again. She closed her eyes, wishing she could sink into the ground in that moment. She wished nothing more than to rewind time before she never witnessed this massacre. All thoughts of her birthday next week, the boys from school, strawberry cakes left her mind with nothing but foul ashes in her mouth. It was the first day of spring, yet she felt like winter had just begun.