III. The Forest and The Field

When I opened my eyes I was in a field. What looked like wheat and felt like water surrounded my legs in swirls of gold and white. I saw a little girl in a white silk dress crouched amongst it. Her brown hair combined with a crimson hat were covering her eyes and nose. She hissed at me, and I lifted her up, her eyes elusively never visible, but she smiled. She wrapped her arms around my neck and whispered ‘Follow me.’ I don’t remember putting her down but soon I was running after her. She was dancing, her little stained dress fanning out as she span in circles in front of me. Soon she had disappeared into the wheat.

 

I looked across the field and saw a figure silhouetted  there. As I came close I saw that it was a woman. Her hair was long and red and tangled. It moved in swirls and waves giving her an air of motion and energy. She had a kind smile, with the slightest hint of wrinkles near her mouth to show she did it often. Though her eyes were covered by circular John Lennon style glasses, her hands and feet were covered in dirt and weeds.

“Are you enjoying the garden dear?” her voice was slightly raspy, an after effect of one too many cigarettes.

I looked about the wheat, which was turning green and flowering at a rate too quick to take in each individual colour and smell.

The child reappeared behind me, and in an enthusiastic voice said “It’s very pretty, did you make it?”

The woman smiled and nodded, walking with the plants and naming each one as she went by. I followed in a trance and watched as everything seemed to unfold with a magical sense of comfort and safety.

 

At some point I laid down amongst the flowers and looked up into the clouds. The child lay next to me and waited patiently, though clearly vaguely agitated. Eventually she turned and whispered “What do you see?”

 

But I couldn’t answer, the woman in red’s voice was floating through to me.

“Poor girl, you must be so tired. You’ve had a big day.”

All at once I felt my eyelids closing.

 

***

 

I stirred as she placed me in a string hammock, and my eyes opened enough to see trees all around me and her smile leaning down to kiss my head, but when I woke up fully she was gone. I laid there a while staring up into the blue expanse of sky. From within the colleseum of trees, it looked as if it was looking down on me, the world around me it’s very own petri dish.

My hand drifted to my neck and my fingertips brushed a pendant. I looked at it carefully – It was silver, with a white stone in the shape of a square hanging by it’s corner.

 

I smiled at this strange gift and danced into the forest happily. My favourite things were the small patches of sunlight which made my feet feel warm with the earth, the patterns in the shadows, and the little voice in my head that kept repeating… “Sometimes it feels like the trees can understand” in a strange and subdued voice, as if from a long forgotten memory.

 

I followed a chain of forget-me-nots, violets and butterflies to the edge of the forest where I found the ocean, rogue waves crashing gently against the sand. I turned to one of the nearby trees and placed my palm against the trunk, fingers outstretched.

“To you, my friend, I wish you a happy life. I hope for all the people that pass you by to see what a wonderful place you are.”

 

Reviews

i love the magic realism in this ruby
also the little girl... you're using a lot of metaphor's, but you're using them well ^^
-ST