Hiberation

It was fall and the world had begun to hibernate. The aspen’s shed their green in favour of more vibrant shades of yellow. Frost clung to the trees as a lover wraps himself around his beloved.

The high mountain bed and breakfast was nearly empty in the mud season—the stretch of time between summer tourism and winter sports. The owners’ days were spent doing some late fall hiking before snow closed their favourite trails.

The weekend was intended as Aislin’s mini vacation away from her family and a celebration of Gabe’s successful first show away from the college stage.

Aislin was curled up on the porch swing, editing her latest fiction piece, sipping a mug of jasmine tea, and awaiting Gabe’s arrival. Theirs had been a hidden-but-not-so-secret relationship. They’d tried to keep their attractions and nights together a secret, but their friends always knew. They’d see his car at her apartment or watch as they orbited around each other at parties.

Aislin recalled the first time she’d felt their relationship solidify into something nearly tangible. She recalled the day it rained. A string of moments strung like pearls—watching him read Charles Schultz in the literature section of the bookstore, running through the torrents to a sheltering restaurant, and intimate moments in a low-rent hotel room. Each pearl a moment to be stroked and held in her mind.

Photo: midnight00