Winter's Song

Life was good when we were young and we were never given reason to think otherwise, nor to consider the remote evolution of man such as late adult hood, retirement and futuristic conditions when the leaves would begin to fall from the tree of life. No way, that would be then and we were now and such things were too far away for the young and vital and not worthy of any thought. Old age was for old people, them not us; but how quickly the pages of the book of life turn before suddenly we find we are easing from the autumn of our lives and conceding to the comforting strains of winter's song to find ourselves looking down and back. Then we are the ones confronted by the truth and the truth is, it does happen and has happened and is happening to us right now; it was happening to Adam Mulberry. Adam bore the label of old really well and had done so since being admitted to Winter's Song Retirement Village four years earlier. Each of his aged companions had a story, an anthology of life experiences which piece by piece he had slowly extracted from them as respect and confidence grew. It had been hard at first, but gradually for many of them Adam had compiled a file in his laptop. Each was a walking history book which in some cases went back almost a full century and it excited him to know he had been accepted by them. With their permission he had converted that knowledge and documented in biographical detail, a series of short stories, cameos that depicted the change that had occurred in a dozen lifetimes on the converging trails that led people not known to each other to a common destination; Winter's Song. These are their stories.