Amabile by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Amabile

Page 5

repeating the noise back a half second late. The air is cold enough to sharpen every scent; distant pine resin, the faint mineral tang drifting from unseen springs, the clean metallic edge of oncoming snow.

He pauses again; this time beside a stand of cattails, their frost rimmed heads swaying almost imperceptibly. The movement is so slight it’s hard to tell whether it’s caused by wind or something subtler; some internal rhythm of the marsh itself. He tilts his head, listening. There’s no breeze. Yet the cattails continue their slow, synchronized nodding.

Far off, that single crow calls again. The sound is stretched thin by the cold, so it seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, thereby inflating its lack of importance.

As he continues, the trail narrows again; showing a decline in the number of those going this far. He takes short careful steps between two birches whose trunks lean inward like old friends sharing a secret. Passing between them feels like crossing a threshold. The light changes; just a shade dimmer, just a touch bluer, as if the forest has shifted its attention.

The snow begins to fall heavier, but quietly, almost shyly. The flakes drift sideways rather than down, moving with a strange deliberateness, as though choosing their landing spots. A few