I

Avivit’s favorite flower was the lilac. He had remembered seeing them in a vase she had placed on a small table. The lilacs were dreary and hung low. It saddened him; eyeing the appearance of the flowers, thus he decided to find her new ones. Aleppo, skipping prayer, ventured out early the next morning to pick them, lively and beautiful. The purple glow glistened under his chin as he knelt down to cull the flower from the soil. The air was cold and wet for a spring morning, which chapped his hands creating furrows on his skin and made it surprisingly difficult to uproot the stalk given that his fingers were cold and brittle. The wool of his shawl was wet and almost frozen at the tips. As the wind blew, beads of water bludgeoned his face which stung him beneath his eyes. His eyelids were heavy and  stained a violet blue pigment not because of the glow of the lilac but because of his nightmarish dreams he had been suffering from for some time now.  He was a thin man, small and secluded. His eyes were narrow set and the irises they possessed  were a vivacious green, soft, and kind in which one would hardly have expected to find in one whose temper was so easily provoked. He walked with a slight bow to his spine, a formal and unnatural position, enforcing an erect carriage of the body. He wore a beard that extended from his ears and assembled under his lip, but submitted no dregs of whisker.

He caressed his weary eyes thinking only of the fears awaiting him each night; the nightmare that plagued his sleep. His dream consisted of a vast plain blanketed with snow, nothing but a dimly lit wasteland amid there was little but an already used up fig tree which had exhausted its purpose in life and a pile of smoldering ash. This had always confused him, for he saw no correlation between the fig and the ash. A crow pivoted itself on top one of the limbs of the tree. The crow, to his bewilderment, spoke in expressions in which he could understand.

“A wife is a man’s future, and a son is a man’s refuge.” the crow whispered in a lax voice.

“What does that mean?” replied Aleppo , his voice quivering, for the fowl terrified him.