Dawn began without announcement of light, a grey cloud filled the valley, cool and damp, and through open door and windows of small cabin, they held beneath covers of a bed as fire burned in dampened steel stove.
From open sky above in star-filled night, morning and world were changed in arrival of front on different wind. Clarity was lost, dreams and sky obscured, and doubt of direction to those without compass or awareness of the land.
Below, somewhere in the cloud, a stream still ran but sound was silenced in denseness of the grey; and through eastern openings of cabin light shone as hint of glow-hope through the valley of cloud.
Together, they lain thinking other thoughts, seeking break from moroseness of changed valley view as blanket and burning stove sustained air and effecting of warmth.
“What do you want to do with your life?” she asked. They were young but nearing age when dreams cede to expectations, adventure to obligations, seeking to settling; and in the cloud, light of the formers seemed cooling and distant.
“Write stories,” he answered, looking on tempered flame through vents of iron stove, listening to the low pops as fire flushed impurity from grain.
“Do you expect to make a living by that?”
“No.”
“Then how will you live?”
“By something else. Career makes the living; vocation the life; and what is a living without a life? Writing will be my vocation. I can live by something else.”
“Then what do you want in life, to achieve in your vocation?”
She shifted nearer beneath blanket, warmth of her open skin lovely as she reached and drew his hand and arm more tightly around and against.
“That by a story, if I write and tell it well, others might more fully believe in life’s beauty and simple wonders—even if only fictions—and by reading, after, better see each alive in theirs.”
“Even if all are fictions.”
“Maybe fiction is best for acceptance of some truth’s telling.”
“Maybe,” she mused, trailing in voice and thought, redirecting as cloud and cold crept near. “It’s too cold,” she spoke.
“That will change. It will burn away.”
“I don’t like it.” She shifted, turning beneath blanket so body faced and touched to his. “Will you warm me?” she asked.
His answer spoke in action. Together, they warmed; and, like story, wrote beautiful wonder known as truth.