Anthropocena, the Winterless

Vasco had first seen her after a torrent of rain that had followed a dry spell, leaving the grass burned and yellow, and turning the ground into compressed dust. His sheep, tired out from the exhaustion of the heat and the mud that clung to their hooves, had trodded through the grass with their head hanging. And even his sheepdog had slouched half-heartedly alongside the small flock. His gaze had fallen on a coppice at the end of the meadow, behind which the mountains began to rise out of the Earth. And there, she had stood; a figure as tall and slender as a young beech. With his eyes squinted, he had been able to make out her face; her skin, which was as gnarled and furrowed as the bark of an old olive tree, and her eyes that rested deep in her skull as two dark shadows. 

His breath had caught in his throat, and he had stopped dead in his tracks, mesmerised, unable to avert his gaze. It had been the barking of his dog that had pulled him out of his trance. He had jumped and whirled around to see a flurry of white fur dart for the trees. When he had turned back to the coppice, the figure had vanished, and when he reached the trees, there had been no trace of her.

Years later, another storm was brewing, and with a groan, Vasco sat down on the remnants of a tree that age and the fall winds had uprooted and adjusted his hat. He let his eyes wander over his sheep and followed Giada with his gaze as she happily zoomed in and out of the flock, tail wagging. He closed his eyes and breathed in the damp air, and with it the smell of the dark earth, rot, and dying leaves. Impressions from the dream he’d had the previous night flickered through his mind: Bark skin, shadow eyes, his feet leaving cracks where they touched the barren ground. It was a dream that had kept sneaking into his nights over the years, but even so, it still crept into his bones like the cold air that nested in his joints and made his knees ache.

Vasco sighed and slowly shook his head to chase away the lingering dream. He opened his eyes and looked over to where the hills became mountains. It was the landscape he had known his whole life. It was as familiar as the rooms of his house, and yet, it had become something strange as it changed over the years. Pastures had disappeared and were turned into fields, and the wild flowers that Vasco had learned the names of when he was a boy, the insects that feasted on them, and the birds that sang in the thicket disappeared with them. Busy roads and railways cut through the landscape like scars on the skin of the Earth. Even the air felt different on his skin. 

It was late in the year, and for days, Vasco had looked out for signs of snow in the higher altitudes and the smell of frost in the air. But the hills and mountains remained a patchwork of green and brown, and the air retained a hint of summer softness that clashed with colder currents to chase storm after storm from the mountains into the valleys. With every fall, winter had withdrawn a little further until the November gray began to merge seamlessly into the February rains.

Giada’s growl made him turn his head. She stood a few meters away from the flock, facing something that moved towards them under the dark clouds that billowed in the sky. With a groan, Vasco got to his feet and walked towards his dog. 

“What do we have there, old girl?” He stopped beside her and narrowed his eyes. At the end of the meadow, the stumps of trees protruded from the soil. Bushes had grown where the trees had been cut down and then burned in one of the summer’s wildfires, leaving barely more than scorch marks on the ground. And there, between the few skeletal branches that swayed in the foreboding breeze, was another movement.

The figure was not as tall as he remembered, but it was undoubtedly her. Layers of brown and gray fabric were draped over her gnarled body. Her back and shoulders were bent like those of an old woman, but in her steps was the energy and self-assuredness of youth. As he watched her approach, a tremor spread through Vasco’s body. It started in his fingers, sent shivers through his arms and spine, and pounded in his knees. But then, his eyes met hers, and she stopped. Motionless, both stood there for a moment, a while, perhaps longer, until she broke eye contact and turned her head, first one way, then the other, as if to take stock of what lay in front of her. Eventually, her gaze returned to Vasco. The shadows in her eyes seemed to have hardened and grown, if possible, even darker. But when she tilted her head, it was like a smile. 

Vasco was about to take a step towards her, but a sudden gust of wind pushed him back. The clouds above them thickened. They covered the entire sky and blocked out the pale light of the sun. The breeze had turned into a strong wind that tore at Vasco’s clothes and blew his hat off his head. Thick drops of rain began to fall. Within minutes, water was running over Vasco’s face, into his eyes, into his collar, and down his back. Large puddles formed on the ground. In other parts, the rain pooled into small streams that ran through the sparse grass and left deep furrows in the soil. 

As quickly as the rain had started, it stopped again. The sky cleared. The figure was gone. For a moment, Vasco’s eyes still lingered on the spot where she had stood, but then he turned.

“Onto one more winterless winter,” he murmured as he slowly walked back to his sheep.

This story is inspired by the Climate Walk project and the accounts of the impacts of climate change that the project participants gathered during their collective hike through Europe.

Written by Merle Emrich.

Cover illustration by Amr Abbas.