Posted in Freaky Friday: Tales of the odd and unexpected

“December’s wintery breath is already clouding the pond,
frosting the pane, obscuring summer’s memory…”
― John Geddes

One Day in December

The early morning light in the eastern horizon, in the colour of brightest red and powerful, like a wild fire, gave the villagers quite the scare. It had been a long dark period after the colours of fall had faded, but they had expected the dark times to last at least several moons over, before the light bringer would once again light the fires up in the North, indicating start of spring.

Gathering into the village centre, whole families and their pets, standing there, staring in awe at the fiery sky. No sound was heard, apart from the roars of the winds in the near forest. Then, the eerie silence was broken. A bang on the ground of a heavy object being dropped followed a squeaky voice:

“Ragnarök!” she shouted pointing at the sky.

The other turned at her, looking and wondering what the village oldest woman was on about.

“The war is coming!” she kept looking at the skies.

“War?” someone from the crowd dared asking.

The old woman nodded and kept looking at the skies, “Yes, the war”, she simply stated. Then sighing, she looked back at the village, who had their eyes turned to the old woman, clearly gone mad or delusional.

“What war is that?” a man questioned her.

The old woman stood silent for a moment before she responded.

“The war of the ages, the war between good and evil” she whispered under her breath and then turned towards the others, “Armageddon!” she half shouted.

“Surely, you are mistaken?” the man continued and hesitated for a moment, “Maybe we have miscalculated the passing of time and the springtime is upon us?” He turned toward the others nodding as if getting the others to go along with his assessment.

But, the others were looking worried and starting to realize, what the woman was trying to say. That the old fairy tales, passed on as folklore. Bedtime stories told by parents to scare the children to do their bidding, may now have become true.

“Ragnarök”, the old woman just stated silently and once again turned her face towards the reddening skies.

To be continued