A Song's Echo (Otherwise Untitled)
#125 of Short Stories
A wolf listens to a song while packing.
~ The wolf settled down quietly to the floor, leaning back against the wall next to the old phonograph. He flipped through the box of discs, pulling it in close to find the one he knew would be there. In the evening's sunlight, the grooves in the plastic were a bit less visible than the dull smell of the sleeve was familiar. He sighed.
~ It was quite a few years earlier, and the wolf's father was carefully assembling the wide loops of track that had been requested for a birthday gift. The child wolf gazed in amazement as the stack of pieces were being made into something broad and grand and eventually in motion.
~ Under the gaze of the evening's sun, the phonograph's needle was carefully placed down at the edge of the now spinning disc. Crackling, and the song burst into the audible.
~ Not as many years earlier, the younger wolf stood still in tears while his father screamed of rage and dishonor to which the teenager had no reply.
~ A cloud passed in front of the sun, its shadow flooding the room as the song flowed out amongst the walls of the old house.
~ Only a few years earlier, the adult wolf and his husband smiled and laughed in the dining room nearby over the holiday feast. Old wounds readily forgotten among the tables and fields of pie.
~ The phonograph's needle raced to the center ring, a soft repeating crackle where there was found no more song. The wolf regarded the house, now populated with a dwindling number of boxes.
~ For a home so filled with memories, it was deeply empty now that his father was gone.