Beyond the pollen of young carried by the buzzing bumble bees, a new season blooms and rebirths everything for the next couple of months. Autumn finally hits the trees, the grass, and the dandelions. They slowly wilt away and regress. Not to prepare Autumn, as she is just a humble warning. The bears, already full, gather the rest of scraps they can lay their claws upon. The squirrels jitter and scram in a hurry before their fur coats become their only warmth.
With the trees saying their goodbyes to their once bountiful leaves and to the geese who will never see the same lands and animals again. Autumn finally arrives and checks everything on her list. Have the trees said goodbye to the leaves? Yes she would write. Did the geese fly south yet? Yes she would note. Has winter come too early? Yes she would probably describe. She checks again. Winter? EARLY?! She hesitates as she reads the question again. Scanning it to make sure it is not false or rather the truth.
Winter has come too early. The leaves still have some thoughts to spread, the geese forgot where the direction of the south is, the flowers have still to pollinate just some more, the bears are not quite full, the rabbits haven’t fully dug their holes, and the ponds are not ready to freeze over! How could it possibly be Winter yet? Then, with Winter being the harshest and vengeful season of them all, Autumn wouldn’t know what to do. And then, small snowflakes flew across the air. It glided and shivered the Autumn queen.
An ice king appears in front of her. A cloud of snow and clouds disappear to reveal him. He had an icey shroud that dragged the leaves away and made the grass cold and brown. He decked an icicle crown with a blue icy crystal. “I have come to blanket the lands in a dreadful snow, freeze over the thriving ponds, and deck the bears and squirrels in a month’s long sleep,” He commanded. “Winter,” Autumn chivalry spoke. “You’re here early, by three months. The squirrels have yet to stuff the nuts, the bears have yet to be full, and the leaves-“”Yeah yeah I don’t care about the squirrels have yet to blah blah blah. It was their fault that they didn’t take Summer’s bountiful gift and prepare for the three months they had then!” Winter protested.
In a fit of anger, Winter threw an icy cast high in the air of snowflakes and hail. If I don’t have the head of a bright, unwilted, golden sunflower, I shall have the heads of all. In this blanket of snow I blast, an everlasting winter shall never pass. In this forest I grant one day of everlasting hope. Succeed, the chant will be broken. Fail, you mine as well lose hope. With the wind high, a swirl of snow covered Winter before disappearing into the ground only leaving behind a small pile of snow.
“One golden sunflower. It shouldn’t be too hard to find a golden sunflower before this day ends.” She was dead wrong. In the fields of once blooming sunflowers, were nothing but old hags who have been already warned by Autumn. She is now in grave trouble…
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After hours and hours and hours of searching the sunflower fields. Not a single soul was left. Autumn had felt like she failed. She failed to find a sunflower, she failed her friends, and she failed the forest. Once a place for the sun to play, is just now a graveyard filled with rot and decay.
In only a couple of minutes, Winter would be greeted to lay a land in a sea of snow until Spring would come and roll it up. Awaiting for his arrival she tilted her maple leaf crown and picked the dirt off her mushroom dress. She huffed and puffed worrying about what may happen. Would it be forever or temporary. Then a sunflower. It grew. In front of her it flew near the feet that were planted. The deer, the ducks, the geese, the bears, the squirrels, and the rabbits, all were in the woods with their eyes peeping. She knew they had helped her. A single tear had shedded from Autumn and when it dropped, a bit of grass grew. She mouthed the words “Thank you” to all of them.
That is when the Winter flurries flew high from the sky as a swirl of snow appeared. Beyond the thick of it was Winter himself. “I’m hoping to find a head of bright, unwilted, and one golden sunflower,” Winter said. Autumn had scooped the sunflower in her hands and pointed it out in front of Winter’s face. Impressed though, he was monotone. “One sunflower as you requested,” she spoke. “Very well then. With this sunflower I shall be gone for now, until Winter hits its true blue. For right now you have three months. Be prepared for my return.” With a quick icicle wand, Winter had brought down his spell.
In a quick hurry just like his arrival, he was gone. All of the plants and animals that weren’t prepared cheered in hurrays. For Autumn had saved the day. By no delay they all started working hard, that this Winter will not be a curse or a blessing, but something to always know you will have to deal with one way or another.
