Forest's Glow (short story)

I'm absolutely terrible when it comes to thinking up names for what I've written, so there's probably a better one for this - but, here we go:

*

There was a pale orange glow; it was beautiful, illuminating the forest as bright as the sun yet nowhere near as large. The animals that dwelled within stared in fascination at this new lights in the winter’s night sky. On the far edge of the forest stood an old and almost-dilapidated shack, whose sole inhabitant was wrapped up in his warm sheets – his only defence against the bitter chill that hung in the air.

The heating had not been on since this unforgiving winter had first set in, the cold sinking into his skin, his bones, his very soul. His firewood was almost all used up and needed to be rationed as he knew colder nights were in store. This was one of the only certainties that he had in his life any more, that there were going to be colder and darker nights and that he was going to spend all of them feeling like, and partially wishing, that he was going to die and it would all happen all alone.

Nobody visited him any more, not even those God-forsaken children that he had raised by himself after his wife passed away all those years ago, God rest her soul. They were busy off living their lives in the city and didn’t want to waste any time looking after this feeble old man in his run down cottage on the edge of some overgrown forest, his eldest’s exact words.

That thought made him laugh, which brought forward a fit of coughs that shuddered his whole body and sent aches through his chest. His lungs hadn’t been doing too good, not since the cold first set in. Enough was enough, he decided, as he shuffled from ‘neath his blankets and stumbled to the stove – each step causing pain and agony as his bones adjusted to the sudden uninvited cold. Beside the stove stood his pile of wood and he placed three within, lighting them with some lighter fluid and a match. For a few moments he stared at the crackling glow from the fire and he placed his hands near, feeling its warmth. He wondered if this was how the cavemen felt when they first discovered fire.

Outside, the wind had started to pick up and he could hear a banging noise at the back – he must have forgotten to lock the shed, he realized. He stood there and listened, making sure the noise was really there; his mind had developed a habit of playing tricks on him lately, seeing shadows that weren’t there, hearing voices that he had not heard in a long time, some he was certain were long dead. If he had any sense, he would be in a nursing home, but there was no way that he was going to leave this shack behind. He had built it with his bare hands for his wife and he and it was the only thing he had left of her; in this rundown shack, it was as if she was still alive.

Once he was fully certain of the noise, he threw on his heavy winter coat and slippers and opened the backdoor, at once feeling the wind pierce through his layers. It was then that he saw the glow, right above the shack and over the forest. At first he thought it was the moon, yet a quick glance showed that it was behind him, just as it should be. What could it be?, he wondered, it couldn’t be a star as it seemed like was hovering over the forest itself and it wasn’t a flare because those eventually would descend. There was something so compelling about this light, as if it were calling to him, as if it were speaking to his very soul.

Without realizing and without barely any control, his feet started plodding their way towards the forest. It was five minutes until he neared the glow. That’s when he realized that he wasn’t cold – in just his winter coat and slippers, with temperatures that were surely in the negatives, he wasn’t cold. Not once did this strike him as odd.

The glow was now overhead and started to descend nearer to him. As it drew closer, that’s when the details became ever clearer; it was a perfect sphere, double the size of a football and constantly changing colour, from orange to yellow to red. When it was a few inches from his head, that’s when he saw the surface and that’s when he saw the face, the one he hadn’t seen in years, save for in his dreams, the one he prayed he’d wake up to every morning, the one he missed more than anything; his wife.

He knew that he should run, that he should scream, that he should do something and yet his feet were just planted there, as if they had grown roots into the very soil itself. A feeling of relaxation moved through his body as the face in the sphere, his wife, started to smile. It descended even more until it was hovering right at his head’s height and at that moment it started to flash like lightning, illuminating the clearing in which he stood, growing bright enough to blind momentarily and cause discomfort. As his sight began to return and the dots began to vanish, there she stood, as beautiful as the day they first met, the day they first kissed, they day he proposed and she said yes and the day they wed. It was too much to bear as the tears streamed down his cheeks.

She spoke, not in words but directly into his head. She told him that it was perfectly alright, that it was so long since they last held each other and that she missed him every single second. For a moment there was silence, save for the howling wind and swaying of trees, before her voice came once more; it’s time.

She held out her arms, beckoning him closer but at first he just stood there, unable to move, to speak, to think. A smile formed on her face and it went away, all of it. He stepped forward, each one feeling like a mile, until he was close enough to touch her; they embraced and warmth spread through his entire body, a feeling he had not experienced in a long time. Their faces moved ever closer, inc-by-inch, until their lips met and their fingers interconnected. She stopped and stared at him, her words once more coming into his head, are you ready? He nodded and that’s when the glow enveloped them both, becoming brighter than the sun before vanishing.

They found him a few days later, lying amongst the grass. His skin as blue as ivory, the tears still frozen to his cheeks. And yet, despite all of this, despite the way he must have died, he was smiling.