A Postcard from the Volcano

With his autumn gone, all that remained was the inevitable frost of winter ahead. Despite the looming end, all the man could think about was the children and the spring they would return to his mansion on the hill. He knew what they would do. They'd do just as he had and has he suspected those before him had done. The children will pick up his heirlooms, his bones, and only see them for what they are rather than what they were. The children will never guess he left much more. They will merely talk of him as he had spoken of those before him, as though the spirits were still there, lingering in the walls haunting their every step. There would be nothing he could do to change the cycle of what would happen. In the spring, the mansion would return to it's dirty and tattered state as he will have said. Just like the old man, the children may not see the gold smeared in the dirt until autumn returns to the mansion on the hill.