The sun was brilliant, its light radiating warmly on all that had been frozen, was still frozen, on everything that appeared so inert and bleak and dead. There was life: silent icicles dripped, small puffs of steam rose here and there from obscure sources, an occasional creak from a thawing tree would break the quiet. But the beauty was in the cool blend of starkness, serenity and golden illumination. It should be a beautiful morning, Kurt thought to himself as he gazed out the window at the icy tableau. The world needed beauty. The world needed the sun to shine its glittering rays on the grim universe of pain and anguish that was apparently man’s lot in his brief time here on earth. Two weeks. It had been two weeks of pain for Kurt, an unrelenting, awful pain that he felt everywhere. Physically, emotionally, in the deepest reaches of his body and soul. Why did the baby have to die? Why did anybody have to die, for that matter? Okay, okay, Kurt shook his head; he knew why death was inevitable, even welcomed at a certain point.
