Smoke and Shadow: A Short Story
Beatrice Maguire-Liao | Fairfield Primary School |
5/6 English | Term 1 2025
I am the remains of a forgotten beginning, a treacherous past, a broken reign. I witnessed – suffered – the birth of mortal flesh unto the universe, I stood stoic, the eldest, as my siblings were born. I took and I took, but I gave myself to a new world. I blew my share of soft breaths of harsh blizzards and death-giving snowstorms. I am as selfish as I am generous. I am as kind as I am cruel. I am full of mystery, yet to some I am as clear as the shimmering water at the height of summer.
Can’t you feel my power bulging against my tightly coiled seams? Can’t you hear my strength roaring in your ears, as I speak so little and convey so much? Disappointing conversationalist I may be. But I am also the most quietly passionate, silently influential of all.
I am a wonder.
I am winter.
I am the initial breath of fresh autumn air, the crispest part of a bright red apple. I am the prettiest tree in the woods, but I can wreak ugly havoc onto my grounds. I thrive in the red leaves, and I nurture the start of the spring shoots that peek through my metaphorical window. Mortals fear me, scavengers hunt me, weather shelters me, all as I rebirth and die in the scheming and mingling cycle of life. I love, I hate. I hold grudges, but my forgiveness is like the first time you finish a book; savour the magic, because you only read a manuscript for the first time once. My forgiveness is the first bite of the ripest fruit, the sweetest wine with a bitter aftertaste; alas! my pardon does not last for long. Ah, what a picnic of personality, basking in the honeyed sunlight streaming through the leafy canopy!
Can’t you guess what I am? The second-youngest of my powerful elemental generation?
I am forest.
Gorgeous I am, the rippling waves of turquoise beach-water, the hot gaze of sun, the sultry expression of an inviting champagne. I am the high-cresting ocean waves, the taste of sweet, luscious strawberries and honey. Almost anything flocks to my touch, whereas winter shies away from it. I encourage fire to the masses, but I can also subdue it. Some may call me vain, self-obsessed, selfish. Perhaps I am all of these adjectives, but I prefer to say that I have an awareness of my true self-worth.
I am one of the most powerful of the elements, superseded only by winter, but that will all come to pass when she passes too. Winter is old, and that is her throne – her age. Yet she will die, like all the winters before her, when she tires of life and embraces the black hands of death, disappearing into its endless smoke and shadow. And then I will be the most dominant.
One day.
One day, I, summer, king of the rushing waters, of the fearsome whirlpools and armies of sea-animals, will be the one with the crown of gilded bones.
Of course, I am the last one to be listed. What else should I expect? I am the one who ROARS. The one who CONSUMES. I leave nothing in my wake except ashes. I cannot be undone by anyone, least of all MYSELF. They think they drive me. But I am surely the one behind the wheel. Yeah, I am the YOUNGEST of the elements. So what? Winter with her uppity white toes sits there, with summer resenting her rule, disgust and potent hate that isn’t quite as hidden as he thinks permeating their every meeting. Both are so invested in each other (aggressively flirting, you could darkly joke) that they neglect to notice forest and me, who work in tandem to gain power.
I am that roaring, blinding, shining mass of all-consuming light.
They could never see their weaknesses. It is the failure age brought upon them – to never learn from their mistakes, or others’ losses. Where they lack, I succeed.
And forest won’t be a problem when we become dual masters of power. Why, what is competition without a bit of skullduggery? I can improve with enough effort. I will kill forest when she becomes useless. And soon – very soon – I’ll be the one controlling with my burning iron fist. Whether I bring about the end of the realms or unimaginably good change, I will dethrone or kill anyone who stands in my way.
Poor elements. They forgot to keep an eye on the slowly festering mould that would take them down, the one thing that consumes and stays around, no matter the season or the obstructions in its way.
And what would that be, you stupidly ask, if you haven’t figured it out already?
Fire.
So eternity fell and rose in great lapses of time. Evil licked away at some and kindness paid homage to others. They each morphed in some ways, but I believe people never really change. They just adapt to their surroundings, or they simply don’t survive.
Forest, albeit being fire’s truest ally, was the first to fall. This brought massive change across the continents. New weather patterns started floods and heatwaves, and no part of Earth was unaffected. Forest’s killer? Fire. Fire who sizzled forest to little more than ruin, after a petty dispute about whether to murder an arsonist.
Then summer was, surprisingly, the second to die. Winter fought with such ferocity against summer’s attempt to overthrow her that summer caved under the sheer power of the almighty. Summer slipped surly and unwilling into the smoke and shadow of death.
Without summer and forest, the world simply broke. Out of unnoticed crevices and cracks erupted cries of death and destruction. Any alien in the galaxy may have noticed the beautiful yet tragic explosion of earth from far away. It was like a million pieces of kaleidoscopic glass had shattered and were floating quickly away from their origins and birthlands. A cataclysmic, cosmic supernova of death.
Fire and winter stood together, watching as their hard work and legacies were undone by their own emotional fighting. They felt no remorse or regret for all they had destroyed. Only that their domain had come to pass, as summer had once hoped winter would do.
They looked at each other. An unlikely pair of smouldering orange and crystalline snow. Winter and fire’s cold and hot hands slipped together in a silent intertwining. It was the softest embrace of the hardest steel.
And, gazing wistfully but knowingly at what they had brought upon themselves, the two elements stepped together over the threshold of death and into the dark mist of the great unknown. Into the smoke and shadow, forevermore.
