If blood in snow bothers you, then you can skip this story because this story is about bleeding to death.

    Ten Sorcerer’s who lived in the woods were beginning to die.  Each one was a hundred years old.  Sorcerer’s never lived more than a hundred years.     

    The Sorcerer’s held a meeting where they flipped through spell books, desperately trying to find a spell to keep them alive.  Gary, the oldest of the Sorcerer’s, collapsed at the meeting.  His head rested on a spell book, the pointed tip to his starry blue and purple hat folded down across his white bearded his face, it looked like typical Gary, napping during one of their meetings.

    “Gary!” one of the Sorcerer’s shouted. 

    “Gary?” another one said quietly.

    The remaining Sorcerer’s went back to their books with a renewed sense of desperation.  One Sorcerer was so shook up by the death of Gary that he opened his spell book to the section on suicide and killed himself right there at the table.  His head fell off his body and thudded on the floor like a ham.

    The Sorcerer sitting next to the dead Sorcerer waved his wand and the head floated from the floor and in a cloud of white stars reattached itself. 

    “Nice try,” he said to the revived Sorcerer who was now crying.

    “Not that it really matters,” said another Sorcerer.  “By the birth book you’re the next oldest by five minutes or so.”

    The Sorcerer who sat next to the revived Sorcerer blushed.  “Well,” he said, “enjoy life while you can.”

    Five minutes later the Sorcerer’s head fell back off and he was officially dead at one hundred years of age.

    “How sad,” said the Sorcerer who sat next to the now dead Sorcerer.  “The poor guy spent his entire life crying.”

    Ned was the next to die.  He was found outside the next morning slumped against a tree.  He had written an embarrassing poem about life and death and stuck it to his bloody face.  The remaining eight Sorcerers all ran back towards the house, their cloaks trailing them like terrified curtains.

    One of them died at the front door clutching his heart and screaming, “Let God be a beautiful woman!”

    Another died as soon as they got back inside the house, also clutching his heart, but screaming, “Let God be a beautiful man!”

    Two of the Sorcerer’s smirked at each other and made their wrists go limp.

    “Classic Stanley,” one of them said and grabbed the dead body by the arms and began dragging it back outside to where dead Ned was.

    The rest of the day was known as the Sorcerers death day.  Two were found dead in bed, naked, clutching each other in a very obscene position which didn’t exactly surprise anyone.  Another died on the toilet with his spell book on his thighs.  And another died while on the phone with his children, telling them how much he loved them and how each one was special in their own unique way.

    The two remaining Sorcerers consulted the birth book and calculated that one of them had two hours to live and the other three hours.  They went back to their spell books, feverishly flipping the pages for something to save them.

    “I’ve got it,” the one said. 

    The spell was an animal embodiment spell and, as an animal, would keep them each alive for one full year.  

    “I guess I’ve always wanted to be a bird.”

    “I think life as a squirrel would be interesting.  All that scurrying around in leaves and such.”

    Each Sorcerer waved their wand around the others head.

    For the next year the bird flew around the woods making nests and eating worms from the rain soaked soil.  He made friends with other birds and made love as the sun rose over the pines.  He had never felt such warmth and freedom in his life than from the folding of wings around his beak.  This is the life, he thought.  Why hadn’t I spent my entire life as a bird?  Why had I wasted it on spells and growing a beard and funny looking robes?

    The squirrel spent his time getting fat on nuts and berries and harassing people.  He darted out into traffic, zig zagged this way and that, and laughed at the drivers who braked and swerved.  He made giant beds out of leaves only to run through them, his tail sweeping back and forth.

    Of course the year passed faster than they could have imagined, and, as planned, the bird and squirrel met back at the Sorcerer’s home to die. 

    It was snowing that evening and the bird and squirrel sat outside the front door watching it build in white mounds all around them.  They noticed the way snow clung to tree branches and how cold it felt on their fur and feathers. 

    The squirrel was the first to turn back into a Sorcerer. 

    “Well,” he said, “this is it.  Any moment now.”

    The bird flew onto his shoulder. 

    “Funny,” said the Sorcerer.  “My entire life felt like a waste.”

    A pool of blood expanded in the snow around his feet.  That was the way he was going to go he figured.  Bleeding to death in the snow.  Not the worst way to go in the world.  His head could have fallen off. 

    “Let God be a bird,” he said.

    The bird chirped in his ear and the sweet sound ran along the skin inside his ear and down his throat and down down down to the blood around his feet turning everything cold and white.  They both watched a deer, sleek as the glare off a knife, break into the snow covered trees.