zerah drabble

"N-nature's first green is gold..."

It was his first foray into reading more mature works. He'd even moved onto books without pictures, though the passages were small, easy enough for him to digest. It's why he'd chosen this book in paticular. He'd since learned better than to read too loud, as this was a building where people valued quiet. Attracting attention was also something he'd learned not to do, much as he'd love to be friends with everyone in the building. It was quickly dawning on him that no one else felt the same.

"Her hardest hue to hold..."

He'd read books before that rhymed like this one did, but without any pictures on the page to lead the way, the images formed in his head. This was an easy enough concept for him to grasp. As the days passed, the green leaves of the trees lit up in flaming colors, red and yellow and orange. It was pretty, but...

He kept reading.

"Her early leaf's a flower.
But... but only so an hour...
Then leaf subsides to leaf..."

That's right. Every errant gust of wind would send the leaves scattering to the ground, tumbling away. Crumbling into dull and empty brown.

"So Eden... sank to grief...
So dawn goes down to day..."

The words made his massive shoulders droop, his head dropping until his curled hair fell over his face. His chest ached, a pain that quickly turned physical as the images of the past week replayed in his head. The beautiful bright city that turned dark, the dreams that twisted themselves into nightmares, the guttering smoke that filled his thoughts with things that even now disgusted him. His mother had been right. It was going to be hard. So, so hard.

"Nothing gold can stay."