Grendel's Dream

It was the coldest Winter anyone could remember remembering. There was talk that the Wolves were coming back and that dark whisperings were stirring. Or maybe it was that dark stirrings were whispered of in dark places. Definitely something along the dark, whispering, stirring lines. The ice was shifting on the lake - the noise revealing a groaning, submerged leviathan maddened by the cold. Sensible men looked at one another, put another log on the fire, took a sip of whisky and checked, one more time, that the door was barred and bolted.

Mothers counted their children and shepherds their flocks. But, even if the count was short, the wise shepherd did not venture out and, instead, considered the missing ewe an offering against the cold and the dark.

The cold reached into people's bones and slowed their blood - a stream made viscid by half-formed ice. Thoughts narrowed so that they could encompass only the cold. Warmth was the fleeting, fading dream that could never be recaptured by the waking sleeper.

It had always been cold. It would always be cold.