Chapter I

Within Temptation - Paradise (What About Us?) ft. Tarja

In the Gardens of the Earth

 

“A girl who has not seen the light,

A sweet flower known by name.

A girl who has not seen the blue sky,

Will be the key to the better world.”

 

Planet Earth in the year 2086

 

Imagine the future where the Earth's resources are exhausted and the world is colored gray and brown.

Imagine the future where the sunlight does not reach down to the ground from behind a thick cloud of pollution.

Imagine the future where ‘real food’ is not known and most of the animals live only in memories.

 

Again, a new day will dawn with no hope of a better. “We have not seen the sun for long, long time " “(sad voice speaks out) and scientists do not predict anything good. They say that us " humans- we are robbed of all what we get out of the Earth and now it comes the time to pay the bill.” Young looking girl was sitting on the couch and in the TV there rotates the footage from around the world; heartbreaking images of degraded forests, dry riverbeds and hungry children crying in their mother’s lap. Suddenly TV picture becomes as white as snow and strange buzzing voice was ringing in her ears some time before she realizes that the voice belonged to a tea kettle. ‘Oh, damn!’ the girl ran to the kitchen and turned off the hotplate. Then she carefully lifted the teapot to the table.

‘Flossie? Is that you?’

‘Yes, mother!’ The girl’s ruffled hair was tied up as loose ponytail, yet her hair reached halfway on her back. She answered to her mother and at the same time she arranged dishes on the table which was wobbling because its one leg was shorter than the other. All of a sudden she remembered the TV and made haste to close it. She had got lost in her thoughts. Her mother did not like the fact that she looks the TV, as basically she wants to protect her sixteen year old daughter who has lived her entire life in the shadow of this dark cloud of pollution which has covered the sun. We have not seen the sun for long time " how long it has been? The girl was standing still and she wrinkled up her brow because she was trying to remember something that happened a long time before she was even born.

Everything started to go wrong when I was only six years old, her mother replied to her daughter’s question; ‘What she remembered of the earth before all the green color was lost?’ Flossie’s mother did not know that she heard her silent cries at night from her room because it was next to her. ‘Everywhere was trees, the water felt cool on the feet and there was flowers, yes flowers my dear " (her mother smiled at Flossie) - in many different colors, yellow, violet, and red. And the sky, oh the sky was so blue! (She shed tears and hugged Flossie tightly) I am so sorry Flossie, but it is too painful to remember!’

‘Mommy, do not cry! Please do not cry!’ Flossie hastens to say. Her mother was stroking gently her hair. ‘Sweetheart, do you know why we, me and your father, we gave you the name you have?’ she asked. Flossie nodded. ‘Because my hair is red as roses and my eyes bluish purple as bellflowers. ‘She smiled at her and kissed her forehead;

‘You are very special Flora Rosalind Violet Bell, always remember that.’

Flossie returned back to present from her own memories. They had been so alive in front of her eyes that for a moment she thought the morning hour was actually the darkest moment of the night! So she was confused for a moment when Megan came into the kitchen dressed in a bathrobe and her blond hair was put in a bun. She still looked much younger than her years, all of thirty six. She had been nineteen when she met Flossie’s father.

Megan’s past

Megan was a young florist student (in that time there was only few living plants left in the world that were considered carefully in protected greenhouses) and in every corner of the world there began to be a lack of food. Young archeology students were protesting against the government and one of them was called Stuart Bell, nice-looking man with a reddish, curly hair and what was a curious thing, he had brown eyes.

He had been placed recruit other students to join them, and he happened to stop by the store where she was as a saleswoman. Megan’s own mother and grandmother had taken care of that very same store, and there was above the front door a sign that said, ‘Flo’s flowers store’.

Megan’s grandmother’s name had been Florence. Megan's mother (herself as Daisy) had been a ‘rebel’ because she had given her daughter's other name than the one associated with flowers which had been the habit of their family for centuries. However Megan’s full name was Megan Annabel Fleur. This was due because Daisy had married a man who had French ancestors in his family tree. Soon Megan discovered that she was pregnant and Stuart instantly wanted to marry her but Megan resisted mostly because she did not want that Stuart would be forced to marry. Fortunately, they loved each other a lot, and when Megan was six months pregnant, they were married. Megan did not have her own dress, but her mother Daisy had modified her wedding dress to fit her daughter. Flowers were not available for private use but Megan's grandmother had surprised her and her mother and gave to Megan a bouquet of white Daisies tied with a blue ribbon.

Megan smiled happily, head leaning slightly against her husband's shoulder in the wedding photo that had been placed in a small shelf that was on the wall in the room which served as both a kitchen and a living room. There was also a photo of Florence smiling, and her slender and almost a fairy-kind face and her hair as dark as night, raised over her head like a crown. Next to Flo there was a photo of Daisy, laughing at something, her round and happy face looking slightly to the side of the photographer. Daisy’s gold yellowish hair was open and she was wearing a straw hat which was decorated with blue ribbon and white daisies. Megan’s hair was much lighter in color.

In present time

They sat at the table eating in silence, or if it can be called ‘eating’ because there had not been “right food” for many many years, in nowadays the food was made entirely mechanically. They were divided into finished packages, ready to use, and the distribution (which took place once a month) belonged to the city's own “food soldiers” - group, as they called themselves. Flora, or Flossie as she was known better, a nick name given by Megan, had never tasted real food.

Flossie poured to Megan a cup of “a substitute tea”. There was only one taste of it and Flossie’s grandmother Daisy did not like it any. She pointed out that she had been drinking “the real thing” " tea in her youth, ‘and not that dishwater which is called as a substitute for tea’, she used to say. ‘Where is dad?’ Flossie asked when she added marmalade on the top of her slice of bread. The marmalade was a great delicacy and rarity in those days. Megan looked very tired. She had dark circles around her usually bright blue eyes. Flossie thought that she also looked little weak and sickly. ‘He is sleeping, he worked for a long time yesterday evening to find the cure to the world, which we once knew, order to be able to bring the past back…’ Megan turned her pale blue eyes toward Flossie and said smiling sadly; ‘…so that his daughter could run around on the green grass and see the colorful fields of many flowers’. Flossie leaned her head against her hand and tried to swallow silent tears. Megan lifted her chin up and gently brushed her cheek. ‘You know sweetheart, that your father would give his everything so that his dear daughter could have the world that she deserves’. ‘I know, mom. I know’, Flossie mumbled response.

Flossie and Megan had just finished eating when Stuart came into the kitchen, running his hand through his thick hair.  Megan stood up smiling and said; ‘Stu darling, do you want coffee?’ Stuart smiled. He spread his arms and looked up at the ceiling ‘Oh, I would exchange an empire for the taste of real, fresh coffee!’ Megan tried to look as seriously as possible, raised her hands crosswise and said with emphasizing on each word but could not help with the smile rippling corners of her mouth; ‘I am sorry, sir but coffee is out for now.’ Stuart laughed and whirled his smiling wife around the room.

Flossie had gone out for a walk. She had taken the first steps in running but now her steps were slowed down as if grief would weigh her feet as heavy weights. The sky was covered with a dirty gray cloud. The sand rustled under her shoes. Unlike the ordinary her father had the day off. Megan usually worked in the nearby factory building air filters. But today, also Megan stayed at home. She was little sick and went to lie down on a bed. Flossie was worried of her but Megan said that it was just flu and insisted that Flossie would go out. Stuart had put his hand gently on the shoulder of his daughter and said; ‘Go out and do not worry, sweetheart. Your mother needs a rest. Go and get from The First Aid - point the medicine for fever.’ Flossie had nodded to his father and rushed out.

The world seemed dreary. The landscape looked quite different than the one in the old post card which Megan kept in her dresser. It was a picturesque picture of the countryside. Green hills and many trees. Flossie was feeling lonely. She only hoped that she would have seen the Earth when it still lived and breathed. But now, it was dying.

In the evening when Megan (who was feeling slightly better due the medicine) came to say good night to her only daughter, Flossie asked her again to recite out loud the poem which she often did when Flossie was only a babe in her arms.

So Megan began;

 

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

Sugar is sweet,

And so are you.

 

She took old and much loved book (by Sir Edmund Spenser) in her hands. It was Megan’s greatest treasure. Then she continued to and her voice was melodious and lilting. It felt almost as her voice danced happily on each word.

 

“The Faerie Queene”

It was upon a Sommers shynie day,

When Titan faire his beames did display,

In a fresh fountaine, farre from all mens vew,

She bath'd her brest, the boyling heat t'allay;

She bath'd with roses red, and violets blew,

And all the sweetest flowres, that in the forrest grew.

 

 

‘Sleep well, sweetheart. Dream of the better world.’ Megan left the door slightly open. Flossie was lying on a narrow bed and looked through the curtains on the dark sky which spread over her. There were no stars. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine what a starry sky seems. Flossie heard her mother talking quietly with her father on the other side of the wall. The bed creaked and then became quiet. Flossie remembered what Megan told once. If you ever see a shooting star, you make a wish and it may come true. Flossie kept her eyes still closed as she whispered a wish to the silent night. Not a sound was heard. The birds were not singing nor did the wind and the world seemed empty and deserted. A solitary tear ran down her cheek.

Flossie was sleeping. She heard this whirring sound, approaching and fleeing away. Something tickled her nose. ‘Wake up, princess! Wake up! , a cheerful voice spoke.

Flossie opened her eyes. What she saw blocked her breathing for a moment. She closed her eyes, opened them and closed again. I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming…Flossie repeated to herself.

‘Hey, are you going to sleep all the time?’ the voice spoke again. Flossie opened her eyes.

The sun warmed her face. A bee flew around her face from flower to flower. She knew what it was because she had read the old nature and animal books that her parents had hidden under the floor of their home. A few years ago all the books in the libraries were assigned to destruction because of the new order of the government (which had already been changed three times in the past after that moment when last living plant died). The world had changed a miserable place to live shortly after that (it happened when Flossie was nine months), and plants were followed by animals, and gradually rivers and seas dried up almost completely. A perpetual cloud covered the shadowed sky and the air became hard to breathe.

Flossie was lying in the meadow, in the embrace of green grass. Even the wind was warm and it was blowing and waving tree branches above her face. ‘Where am I?’ Flossie said. ‘No less than in another dimension, Princess Flora’. The boy was standing in front of her and bowed with his spoken words so deep that his golden curls almost touched the land. His facial features were beautiful, with red cheeks and twinkling eyes. Flossie thought that the boy must be at the same age as her, but in the same time the boy seemed almost ‘timeless’. The word popped into her mind all of a sudden. ‘What kind of dream is this? What kind of dimension? Who are you? And how do you know my name?’ The boy smiled at her. ‘If that’s all you want to know then follow me, be so good.’ The boy stretched out his hand and spoke at the same time; ‘Yes, you’re dreaming but at the same time you are not. It is the only way to get here, the time when you’re sleeping.’ Flossie took him by the hand and gave the boy to lead her to the top of a green hill where grew an enormous old-looking Oak tree, of which branches seemed to reach up to Heavens. Then he continued; ‘And what will come with my name, precious Flora, my name is Michael. I am the one who loves because He loves. I am he who was given the task, the most important one.’ Michael smiled to himself and looked at the blue sky. Michael continued with respectful tone. ‘He who is behind all of this "‘, Michael moved his hand in a large circle in front of the landscape, - ‘is the Lord of All Creations.’ Flossie looked at him with puzzled expression on her face.

‘You mean that I am in heaven? Am I dead?’ Michael burst out laughing. At first Flossie did not know how to take it, as complement or as in insult but soon also she joined the laughter. There was something in him, and it was not only that brilliant light which seemed to shone from his face neither the golden curly hair of his but it was in his almost angelic appearance, and the way how his blue eyes were twinkling as stars. Michael looked at her, pondering carefully his next words. ‘Sweet Flora, your name was given to you for a long time before you were born. You were and you are loved. By me and by Him who’s thought and mind will cross the walls of space and time.’ Flossie looked amazed at all those colorful flowers, the green grass, the bubbly river and the songbirds of which song she had never heard before. ‘It’s beautiful here. Not like in there where I came from.’ Grief cloaked her face and voice. ‘What is this place? What name do you call it?’ Flossie asked.

Michael took her by the hand, and his touch seemed to radiant heat from him to her.

‘Dearest Flora, you’re in the Gardens of the Earth’.  

Author's Note

Postscript

“I wrote this very powerful story in part because of that I am worried about the current state of the world and the fact that natural resources are used recklessly and forests are being cleared down. Keep my story in your mind and when you walk in the outdoors, I hope that my story reminds you that this blue and green jewel, which is known as Earth, is the most valuable thing we have.

Take care of it.

And if the story has influenced you, hopefully in a good way, then my work was not in vain.”

Credits of photos goes to the artists.

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

Beautiful. A tempting and wonderful story dear Sarah. You create amazing story line and strong characters. I liked the strong description of the characters. Made each one have reason and purpose. A very good ending to the amazing opening chapter.
Coyote

[~Sarah~ Idríel The Fair]

It is my favorite thing as a writer, to form a precise portrait of my characters. =)

[Coyote Poetry]

We must. Make the story line come alive for the reader.