It was silent in the autumn breeze with only the wind blowing golden leaves across the empty park. Not even the crows who often belted their croaking melancholia from the oak shifted. They puffed up their feathers like black coats and pulled them tight as they sat in their nests. Winter's chill sat in potential on the weathered clouds, darkening a pale yellow fluff to dark grey with a promise of frigid rains. It never snowed here, but the chill of winter bit deeper every year. Well, it wasn't quite correct to day it never snowed, for almost every year since that fateful day, if snowed. Technically.

No children played in the park, as the stones that crunched beneath their feet had been long since bleached too white in unabating sun, and no more green sprouted to break their fall. I could remember their laughter, though. Even after all these years, I don't think I'll ever forget the sound of a child's laughter.

"You think the weather tomorrow will be good?" He asked beside me in a creaking voice.

I began to tell him. I told him how the double headed crows told me of now coming soon. The hogs in my garden got bolder. The bats and all four little wings fluttered in my attic, seeking warmth. I told him about every struggle and strife I knew.

"You think the weather tomorrow will be good?" He asked, for that was all I knew how to make the creaking skeleton say, and I never was creative enough to come up with something. He'd said that to me the day the bombs dropped. Im bad at making things up... but I know how to remember.

I don't think I can forget.