Oddities,

“Where are we going?” he asked in the tone of one who was now used to her spontaneous tendencies to wander off as a result of complicated thinking patterns. That in turn, led to notions of dragging him with her to some unknown and entirely inconvenient destination without regard to any plans or chores that had been premeditated for the day.1

“Shhh” was her simple response. It was not a harsh or rude reply, and neither had it been intended as such, but when she was in deep concentration she needed total silence without being bothered by the appropriateness and practicality of his questions.2

They were heading very far from the garden, which they had been tending from the dark and strangely heavy hours that winter morning, until half past the sunrise that had stopped his gardening companion in the middle of her duties. She had ceased her weeding and stood to admire an inspiration out of the unwitting phenomenon.3

Inevitably he had seen the look on her face as a whim formulated freely inside her head. He had vainly, as usual, endeavored to cut off whatever odd venture she was suddenly conjuring. But knowing so well the futility of that action, especially once she had substantiated his concerns by taking his hand and pulling him away from the comfort of logical, all together more suitable, activities.4

“You know” she spoke in a way that made him realize she was not now attempting to reveal where they were going, but instead wanted to share a random thought that had been floating in her mind, “I don’t know why people compare stars to diamonds. They look like pearls…ones that just journeyed from the very finest points in the ocean and swam right up into the sky”5

He laughed against his will. She was not being humorous in the least, for some reason this is truly the way she thought, and he found that in itself to be slightly hilarious yet not in the way most people would define comedy.6

“And” he said, “How exactly did they swim into the sky?” it was pointless to argue anything about these fantastic observations of hers. All arguing did was get her to be quiet about them, not make her change her mind.7

“Where the sea meets heaven. Remember what the sea looks like? We’ve spent so long in this place that I nearly forgot, but you were out there longer than I was” she was rambling as she tugged him along but he had spent enough time here to understand what she was saying.8

He took a moment to reintegrate their surroundings into his memory as he stumbled forward beside her.9

They were on a paved road. The warming tar substance beneath his feet was the only normal amenity in this place that had seemed once so bizarre to him. 10

On both sides of them there were fields that ended on the distance of eternity; grass that had never been treaded upon was abundant, and the sky never knew a cloudy day unless the occupants of this other world saw fit to have a change of season. Nothing died in winter, so the white and velvet purple roses that bloomed directly from the ground like individual tulips and without bushes, were always perfect and as fragrant as if freshly grown in spring. 11

And the flexible oak trees that made a delicate canopy of sun beam highlights, mauve leaves and crisp green colorings of autumn in long twisted branches above one section of the solitary road, never went bare.12

She had made both of those things herself before he had arrived here: the entire field with those before mentioned thorn-less roses and the sheltering oak trees.13

And of course, the exotic garden they had been working on earlier, which held within it a path made of flattened chalcedony, which directed one throughout the entire acre of plants and statues; a row of ivy and grape vines growing directly from the earth (instead of somewhere sensible) and tangling wildly together was one of her many eccentric displays she had put there. 14

And of course there was the suspended pain glass statue of finches perched on a windowsill, which hovered in mid air, defying every law of gravity. 15

Below that were the as yet uncategorized flowers that were connected together by their petals which were in the shape of puzzle pieces, and indeed if you leaned over the symmetrically correct patch they created, you would see that together they made a picture of pyramids or castles or distant lands…whatever the viewer wished to view.16

When he had somehow woken up to find himself in this mythical land on a particularly fateful evening, with no way to return to the real world, he had asked the only other person here why everything was so horrendously strange.17

She explained to him that she had thought of this place herself and just kept revisiting it until she got trapped here indefinitely. She had seemed much more calm than he would have been in her position, and now he saw that he was indeed in her position and taking it none too passively.18

He had asked her how he had ended up here. She told him that he must have been coming here in his dreams without realizing it, and eventually got stuck.19

He had laughed off the unpleasant thought. To accept that he had in some form of conscious come to such a whimsical land willingly, and now was trapped as a result just would not do if he were to ever keep a good spirit about the situation.20

A few weeks after his arrival she had showed him how to create things, for that was the entire reason for being in a place like this anyway. But he always came up with some unoriginal common invention. Coffee, beds to sleep in, orchards of fruit trees, crops…any normal, easy to imagine necessity.21

She had giggled at him the first time he had offered her a cup of tea, saying that she preferred cinnamon juice from the mangopple bush she had made. 22

He had stared at her with an almost painful look on his face, fearing that he had been trapped here with a lunatic. 23

“Don’t worry,” she had said, “I only call them mangopples because they look like a mix between mangoes and apples. I’m not insane”24

She had replied with such sincerity that over time he had come to believe that despite her unhelpful case for her sanity, she just had an extreme imagination. On an interest he began to ask her how she thought up those indefinably admirable creations, but her responses were always unsatisfactory and evasive.25

“Here we are,” she announced, interrupting his thoughts and making him weary as he looked back on how far they had walked.26

There was an empty field.27

He was exasperated and ready to lecture her about pointless wanderings, yet she beat him to the punch and spoke first, “You keep asking me how I make those odd creations…I’ve lost track of how long you’ve been here, but I think I can show you now”28

He felt like the moment was gradually changing into a precarious mood.29

~~30

She felt cautious. 31

If she had ever shown this method to anyone else it was laughed at or carelessly tossed back at her because it meant nothing to the wrong kind of person. 32

She was afraid that he’d consider her fanatical. But at least here she was in her own element. In this realm she had thought up, she could expect certain things and prepare herself to take the fall for misunderstandings that reality would bog upon her.33

It was safer here and she had known him long enough to decide that he would be okay to tell.34

“Close your eyes” she said, and he must have sensed her own noticeable uncertainty because he did as she asked.35

“Think of how a dandelion looks” and she knew he did because she saw it appear before her in the field.36

“Describe it to me” she requested.37

“Why on e--”38

But she would have no interruptions, “Please”, she said in a deadpan tone that held no patience for inquiry at the moment.39

He paused, taking in the atmosphere her hidden nervousness was causing before he began to describe the perfectly practical thing he had imagined. “It has a green stem that’s soft and easy to pick, and a round, full top, with white seeds that you can never feel properly against your hand unless you crush it”40

“Okay…now listen to me carefully. There’s a glacial breeze that turns your skin numb from it’s freezing temperature, you can practically smell the winter weather that rides upon it as it brushes between your hands and swirls against your face. It’s almost like it’s sensing you, even being mocking at some level. It blows fiercely past you until it reaches the seeds on the dandelion. It beats them off until they’re aimlessly yanked into the air…” 41

She watched his face and saw from his expression that he was witnessing all of this. She suddenly felt that frigid breeze whipping against them for a moment and then turning its attention to the dandelion in the field.42

The tiny seeds never stood a chance and they were flung from the spot of their origin into the open space of nothing that’s always between the earth and the heavens. 43

“You see them floating…what would you compare it to?” she asked quietly and watched the continuing scene playing before her.44

“It’s like…” he began but then had to think of something that would do the picture in his mind justice. “It’s like pieces of a dove’s feather…?” he was uncertain about his own definition.45

“No, think of something more extravagant. There are no limitations or rules on how to perceive things,” she urged.46

He concentrated and in some vague part of his mind he realized he must have the same expression on his face that she normally did when she was thinking on a level that sometimes eluded him.47

“It’s like a small piece of an angel’s wing…like a shredded angel’s wing…” he began, and was suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling of accomplishment that she now radiated beside him.48

“Yes, and how did the wing get shredded?” she asked with excitement.49

He thought of all the impossibilities of this scenario and therein found his answer.50

“There was an unfortunate run-in with a plane”51

She laughed, “Okay, but where’s the angel at the moment?”52

He thought hard. “Its here, trying to collect the pieces of its wing…it’s frantic, it doesn’t want the other angel’s to know about the embarrassing situation.”53

“That’s it! Open your eyes!” she said with the enthusiasm of a child.54

He did and found before him the frantic angel flying everywhere trying to gather the pieces of its wing while a cruel wind chased it and tried to knock the pieces back into the air.55

“So, anyway, that’s how I do it. One thing leads to another thing and I always ask myself how I can do a normal creation justice by comparing it to things that will ultimately lead to a unique captivation” she went quiet and suddenly unwilling to converse. Just like she had been the first month or so he had known her.56

He realized without needing her to explain how dear this must be to her.57

“Thank you” he said kindly, a bit speechless himself as he appreciated the simple magnitude of her thought process.58

After a moment, she turned away from the sight of his creation with a slight smile on her lips, and began walking back towards the garden. He followed her presently, walking backwards so that he could view the thing he had just imagined into existence until it was no longer viewable.59

She knew what he was feeling as they arrived at the garden. It was a weightless triumph, a feeling that did not settle entirely into your mind or soul until some adequate time had passed, the amount of which differed for each person. It was like drawing a picture out of boredom and then absently analyzing it a few days later, discovering that what you had drawn was a spectacular masterpiece.60

She surprised herself sometimes, when she stopped to truly consider the universe around her. More accurately it was the universe itself that surprised her, not the things she placed among it. 61

Everything connected; everything led to something else, something more… something different… it never ended. But when you paused along that infinite linkage to dabble in hindsight at your beginning point, and the part you are at now, it amazes you how the thing that you started with connects to a thing so entirely different, but it all makes sense.62

He threw an arm over her shoulder as they stood in the garden thinking towards each other rather than inwardly towards themselves. She had always told him it was much nicer to think silently aloud than silently to yourself.63

He was suddenly much less uptight than he had been ever since his ending up in this strange realm, “I’m beginning to enjoy this place a little, Amanda”64

“Insanity will do that to people, Ronan” she replied with a smile.65