Green leaves fluttered on a warm June breeze.

On some early morning, as the last rainy months of spring touched cusps with blooming summer, I sat at a window and stared at the world outside. A pair of tall elm trees rustled in the breeze, leaves dancing with the sway of wispy winds. Storm clouds drifted on the horizon. Their grey bellies hung low, and they turned the sky beneath them black. Meanwhile, up above, a bright yellow sun in a clear blue sky cast golden rays over leaf and brush and wet grass. A common contrast: the dark clouds and the shining sun were practically neighbors, here. They greeted each other kindly as they passed one another in the sky, and they rarely fought for dominance. Each went about its business: the clouds loomed in one half, bellowed thunder in the distance, and the sun cast yellow rays from the other over branches and trees, turning emerald leaves gold with its glow.

I stared out the window at the elm leaves, lost in the sky and the clouds. A touch of wind swept in through the shutters, not hot or wet or cold: just pleasant.

It’s melancholy business, staring out your window. Worse when your time is almost up. Not ‘almost up’ as in you’re dying—nothing that severe. Just the end of a journey, the end of an experience. You’d be surprised how close those two things are, though. When it really boils down to it, an ending is an ending after all: whether it’s the body and all life, or just the end of an adventure. It’s still the end. And that’s sad.

The door behind opened. Salmaer Flaurite fluttered into the old inn room.

“Well then, my fine fellow: my most excellent traveling companion!” he said. “It’s just about that time. Shall we be off and on our way—?”

The merchant paused. He looked over across the room. Then he stood a bit straighter, stiffened his back, and walked across the oak floorboards to a standstill.

He stopped beside me at the window.

“A beautiful place, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“You know, when I was a boy I lived in a place much similar. There were no dragons there, of course. And I remember the sky much more orange. But I loved it all the same. The elm leaves and the way the sun put a gold sheen over the green. The way the dark clouds made the forests shine brighter. There were waterfalls, there. And when they poured into rivers, the sun glanced off the water as it fell…”

The merchant trailed off.

“Well, it was magnificent indeed.”

I turned to him.

“Do you miss it?” I asked.

“Well, that is a good question,” he said. He looked out the window and smiled.  “It’s in a man’s nature to move on from the past: to forget. One of the great blessings of being human. We let go of what we leave behind. And yet, when I sit quiet, left alone to my thoughts…”

The merchant sighed.

“Then yes, I miss it.”

“I’m not sure I’m ready to leave,” I said.

“People rarely are, when their time is finally come. But what makes you say so, Master Alistel? If I recall correctly, you’ve had plenty of angry moments here. Do those fade so quickly when the time has come to go?”

I turned back out the window and sighed. Not the kind that hinted at exasperation, just…

Just a sigh.

“I know there were times when I wasn’t happy here,” I said. “Gods, if I bother to think about it, those times might have been more than the good. I can recall three times I was miserable to every one good memory. But it’s not like I was always sad here. It was an adventure, I learned. I grew, and…

…even the bad memories—even those sad times: they were mine. They were here, in this place. So if I’m leaving the place, it’s like I’m leaving a part of myself behind, too. And even if they’re bad memories, they’re still my memories. It’s still me. I’m giving up a part of myself by leaving here. It’s like cutting off a finger and leaving it behind. Now any time I see an elm tree, I’ll think of what I left. When I see storm clouds in an otherwise bright blue sky, I’ll remember the times I had here. Those trees are so much prettier, now that I won’t see them again. The land looks so much more vivid, now that we have to go. It’s not like I didn’t appreciate it while I was here, but…”

I shifted on the window and stared up at a grey cumulus, rimmed with shimmering white, as it passed over a sunbeam.

“I guess you appreciate everything a lot more in the hours before you go.”

“And that is certainly true,” Salmaer said.

Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“You have exactly the right of it. It’s not until our final moments, in just about anything in fact, that we appreciate the time that we’ve had. The good times and the bad times: such distinctions mean little to fond reverie. They were our times—that’s what man remembers. Ours subjective, carefully recorded and sorted into the endless corners of our minds. We package them away without knowing, storing up memories we might not ever revisit. But even though, in those final hours, the world seems shining bright, in truth it’s just the same as those grey clouds looming on the horizon. It’s contrast, my boy. Contrast in all things: the bright against the dark, the dark against the bright. And you’ll find that to be the truth in so many things in this wonderful life of ours. When grey storm clouds linger in the sky, they serve to sharpen up the green woods. When the blue sky blooms overhead, it in turn makes the thunderhead darker. And when the sunlight hits those star-shaped leaves, half go golden, and half sink to murky emerald. That is nature, my boy. That is life. That is everything in the whole of creation, at least so far as my travels have told me.”

He gave my shoulder a pat.

“So fret not, Master Alistel, but instead allow yourself that melancholy: to fully, truly feel it. For in so doing, you set the stage for the next turn of this beautiful world. You must have melancholy, after all, for the good times to bloom bright. You must have good times, after all, for the melancholy to sober your soul. And so long as there is a bright blue sky overhead, there will be storm clouds grey and menacing. And so long as there are angry clouds looming, the sun and sky and forests will blossom with brilliant color. And so long as those things contrast each other, each will ever be vibrant and beautiful—for one simply can’t exist without the other. And though your eyes may linger on those deep and darkened storm clouds, their presence makes the sky shine that much brighter. The very moment they pass, and the sun shines out again, you’ll see those golden leaves have never left you—and you’ll see them brighter still, with the dark grey to compare. They are still there: all of it is still there. No matter where you travel, or where you roam, or who you love, or who leaves you behind, the sun, and the sky, and the clouds are all still there. It all makes up that gorgeous contrast for which we live and thrive.”

The merchant gave my shoulder another pat. Then he turned and walked away.

“Besides,” Salmaer paused, and turned at the door. “These trees will be here for you whenever you’d like to return. And though it will not quite be the same, it is very certainly the next best thing.”

Then he left the room.

I looked up at a grey cloud. As it passed in front of the sun the world darkened, just a bit. The cloud, however, began to glow, and its edges burst quick into silver.

Then it passed, and as it did, the sun flooded the elm tree outside. It burst into a million shades of gold and green. The wind picked up, and the leaves began to rustle in an easy, shuffling sound.

I don’t think I’ll forget that sound as long as I draw breath. And I’ll look forward, one day, to hearing it again.

With that I turned from the window. I picked up my pack, strapped on my sword, and walked out the door of the inn.

It’s melancholy business, staring out your window. Especially when your time is at an end. But if you decide to look out, take in all the scenery, the whole thing—look up at both the storm clouds and the sky, and the elm leaves, and the wet grass; if you tally up your winnings, and your losses, and your scars; if you pay the right respects to both the storm clouds and the sun, I think you’ll find the time you spent was worth it. And here, at the end, with the final hours on you, when you look back at what you’ve done, you’ll see a picture so bright and vivid and beautiful that you might decide the journey was worth the grey.