Signs of Spring

Spring comes so rarely to our world that I am thirteen when I experience my first. Long have we prepared, but all the adults worry that it won’t be enough, that we will find ourselves wanting before the dead and dying months come again.

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At midday, when we rest, the adults tell us youngs what to expect from Spring. It is Grandfather Casper who describes it the most vividly.

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“You feel it first in your bones,” he says. “A creeping ache that stiffens your joints so that even walking takes an effort. Then the flashes start: little white streaks across your vision that grow bigger and more frequent, until, between blinking and the white flashes, you only see the world in brief moments.

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“Finally comes the Sound. It is the noise of many noses, blending into a cacophony that rises above all else as Spring overcomes the world, blanketing everything in a prison of life.”

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This, among the many other descriptions of Spring, terrifies me. It seems impossible that we could survive such a pervasive enemy. We will be beset on all sides, unable to escape the bloat of Spring. Yet our people have survived it again and again. Everyone says this time will be no different.

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I must trust.

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But I fear the Spring.

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​* * *

 

The heaviness comes, as Grandfather Casper said it would. The air is warm and sticky; it is exhausting just to walk from one room to another. My parents tell me that I must walk, I must do my chores, or the weight of Spring will crush me.

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The scent of Spring is a sickening mixture of floral notes and ripening fruits. I am nauseated, but my parents tell me to breathe deeply; I must get used to the smells or the struggle will be that much harder. I eat lightly for four days, forcing down every bite.

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Each day brings some new trial. The white flashes give me a headache that does not end; my parents give me medicine, but still I am not excused from my responsibilities. No one is. All suffer together.

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The sound is most oppressive. It builds on itself, disturbing the natural quiet of the world, and it never ends. Day and night the living creatures shriek and cry as they hunt and play and mate and die, but the quiet sounds are somehow worse: the groan as plants and trees stretch out their limbs, growing larger every day, twisting and spreading until every inch of good, brown earth is covered in a wild spray of colors. Green! I quickly sicken of its many shades.

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All of these things emerge in the first few weeks of Spring. I am weak, ill; how can I make it through months of this? The adults say that I will, that we all will, but I am not so sure.