The Mangrove: A sweet doe sings a song of lost love.
It was nearing midnight and Little Pea had already been up for several hours. The swamp was quiet, she’d usually love that. A rare night when the cicadas tempered their song and the frog voices were melodic rather than loud and invasive.
But sweet Pea did not love tonight.
Her heart was sick and her mind in unease. The dark veil of night coated the land in it’s peace and quiet but Pea was too concerned about another doe, one pretty and pale. So white she practically glowed in the dark.
Pea sat, resting her maw delicately on a raised mangrove root as she thought of the doe. They’d had a marvellous time together, she too was of a nocturnal nature and so they filled the nights with their laughter, conversation and occasional sung duet.
The swamp had not been quiet and she began to love that.
Began to love her.
For the first time in her life Pea found her quiet, peaceful night to be intolerably forlorn and before she knew it a sad song hung in the air, long tunes from her very own voice.
The sound carried, and seemed to bounce off the thick foliage around her, filling her ears and her precious night. At first it was like coming up for air, a gasp made involuntarily, but desperately needed. The wordless song trembled from her throat like waves of her raw emotion.
But it was almost painful, the sound coming to an abrupt halt, her voice breaking in an sob and before she knew it tears had welled up in her eyes and spilled over.
The sounds of her own sadness echoed in her mind, telling and undeniable. She had loved the doe that glowed. Even when it became clear that her heart belonged to another. Pea didn’t care, in turn her own heart grew fonder. She thought, misguidedly, that she could take the place of that buck.
Him, so ungrateful and wrapped up in himself that he could not see, he was the luckiest kin alive to have this beautiful pure soul’s heart. Pea had listened to it all. She had heard the woes and regrets, but done her best to return them with cheer and comfort. Lean on me, she’d told the other.
And stay, she should have added.
The day came when he finally came looking for her and to Pea’s great dismay, she fell into his embrace and with a brief farewell, left this little Pea to wallow in what was a love lost before she’d even realised it had begun.
How could she? Pea wondered occasionally. Why did she? Pea wondered more often.
Why would sure a beautiful soul kindle its self where only disappointment and rejection could be found? How could she forget in a single instant how he’d tossed her aside without second thought for another? How could she bare to waste another moment on him?
The irony, of course, was lost on poor, sweet, naive Little Pea.