Saturday's Storyteller: "And the birds stopped chirping."
by Belinda Roddie And the birds stopped chirping. And the wind stopped blowing. And the rain stopped falling and the trees stopped growing. And the sun stopped rising. And the moon stopped setting, while the stars got brighter and we just stopped forgetting. About broken heart play dates, about clumsy dance and figure eights, about separation of church and state or about getting locked behind electric gates. I stopped forgetting, and my memory just erupted with a data that was mined and inadequate and corrupted. This was the beginning of something much more sinister. This was the beginning of the Half-Moon Winter. *** It was not easy to find food to eat. The grass was green, but still. Somehow, it was cold even without breeze, like the impending chill before snow. Only it did not snow. It remained night, and we remained frigid against our shelters. I went outside to gather collapsed bark for a meager fire, only to discover that the trees, once stunted in their growth,