Early Winter

The petals, once glorious in scent and hue, were now blackened and shrivelled, now powder blowing in the white hot wind.

 I saw my roses returned to dust with eyes that couldn't bear the sight, thankfully they were taken from me before I had to witness the greater horror.

It was a Saturday in October. We’d cleared the time reddened leaves from the lawn trimmed the last of the summer’s growth from nature itself and prepared for the snuggle of winter. Padded coats were donned against the morning’s frost, breath hung in the air like ghosts of words that were never to be said.

My man and I had finished the grunt work and now were busy with the joy of play. Our offspring ran and shouted and flung mown grass. We made leaf angels for the want of snow. We brushed the paths clearing the last of the warm wind borne dust.

In this morning we’d forgotten the news reports, the turmoil in which the world had found itself. The Arab spring had given way to a summer of extremists, believers strapped death to their bodies and destroyed the unfaithful in an extasy of light and sound. There had been whispers of weapons grade plutonium going missing. We in the west had closed our eyes and ears and waited for Halloween.

The horror came early.

I was inside, at the kitchen window, watching my man play with our young. The radio was on. My ears not really believing what they heard. ‘a series of attacks throughout the country…..homemade nuclear devices…..whole cities wiped out.’ A numbing heat spread through me and in that moment I knew true fear.

A flash in the distance.

I put my hands to the glass and whisper goodbye.