Lullaby

            From the beginning I knew there was no other way, and in the end I again reminded that to myself as I watched the dying stag writhe in the snow. I slowly approached it; I never enjoyed what it took to survive, but survival is doing what it takes or accepting defeat. The things you remind yourself as the snow crunches under your boot, the dead leaves beneath the snow, and the solid earth beneath that.

            The innocent stag, poor thing, was learning what guilt felt like when it strikes physically. Its body writhed uncontrollably around, the blood pouring from its neck. Dying in the snow and dyeing the snow around it, the macabre thought swirling in my own mind as I close the distance, careful not to let its wailing limbs strike me.

            I ignored the cold to kneel beside its head as its struggles diminished, and took its head in my hands as well as I could, dodging its antlers as it shifted its head in fear. Here in the end, its killer became its comfort as I caressed it and sang to it, a soft lullaby it had never heard before and would never hear again – not as sweet as the birds and running stream, the wind in the trees, but all was still now in the graveyard of seasons, and I could not let life slip away in silence.

            So in my hands I held the fur that slowly lost its heat to the blood that fell from its throat, and as its heartbeat slowed to a crawl and finally ceased, my own voice was all that was left, and once again I was alone. Alone with the dead that would soon be renewed, the stag as my own life and the season in two more months’ time, to be sure.

            I sometimes wonder, when I go, if there will be a lullaby for me as well.