The Grey White Feather

The Grey White Feather

The grey white feather glided down from unseen wings.

She looked at the page.

Glided?

Was that the word?

It didn’t seem to do justice to the elegant passage of the gentle whisper that floated down on wisps of air.

Glid?

The feather glid down?

That sounded ridiculous.

Yet she would write: The goose glided down and slid on the ice, surprised not to ski and skim over the lake’s surface, now frozen in the grip of winter.

Glided it was then.

If it was good enough for a garment of feathers on a goose, it was good enough for one feather, gliding down from unseen wings.

The golden watery sun shaded the garden. She sat shivering; waiting for the shadows to part and warm her in the weak rays of the winter sun.

Painted reds and hues flared and changed as the light lit their tinder. It would have reminded her of the setting sun, painting over the Grand Canyon; from orange to cherry, to crimson to cedar red and a darker mahogany before allowing the blanket of night to settle over the great gorge.

Had she ever seen the Grand Canyon, these colours in her garden, painted red by her own hand and shaded by the winter sun, would have reminded her of it.

Alas, she had never seen the Grand Canyon.

Nor Uluru, which also passes through the spectrum as the brush of sunrise sweeps softly overhead.

The garden greens stir, too, with winter shrubs huddling round the purple heathers, reminding her that life goes on,

Amongst the death, life goes on. And among the dead, the living must survive.

She puts down her pen, weary and drained.

She is calm and she will write more in a while. But for a moment, as the light warms her, now, gently, she remembers the dead. Her soft thoughts hang like dew, gently dripping. Or sliding down a wide leaf or stem. Like the tear trickling down her face.

The loss was unforeseen.

Unimaginable.

Yet thousands died.

Some were killed by those closest to them, who loved them to the end, yet could not hold them.

Places of sanctuary and care for the weak and old became traps. Pits of no escape. Places of medicine turned into morgues, where you dare not chance seeking help as the helpers themselves became killers, even as they died.

But this was 2020. There was no plague; no Black Death with bursting buboes and pus to carry the stench of death.

Yet, still it came.

From nowhere.

To everywhere.

She sighed and picked up her pen, sipping from her China cup and continued to write:

“The grey white feather glided down from unseen wings.”

Many believe that such feathers signify something

Hellena wasn’t sure.