The Duelist

Sometimes I forget that things weren’t always winter.

It understandable, I suppose; the evidence of the way things were are hidden away, the way old photographs and letters make their way to the back of our drawers. It’s easy to judge the present solely by things that are evident only in the present.

Season change. That is the nature of seasons, to pass from one to another in an unending, unrelenting progression.

I remember what you were like at the beginning of autumn. You were beautiful, more beautiful because your beauty was fragile, and because I understood that fragility. I wanted to shelter you from the coming winter, if you would let me.

But you pretended as if the creep of the cold across your lands was insignificant, basing your judgment solely on how imperceptible its advance was.

I can wait. That’s the part that confuses people, you see - my ability to lie in wait, seemingly motionless, for so long that it appears I have frozen in place.

Frozen. Curious choice of words.

Even winter passes. Until it does, I will lie here, coiled, waiting.