A Garden So Brilliant

Sam lay on the soft dry grass and looked up at the sky. He loved looking at the shapes the clouds made, daydreaming about each one and inventing stories in his mind about where they had come from and where they would go. He usually didn’t have time to do so because his mother always needed help as she was so sick and feeble she couldn’t even get out of bed.1

When he went down to the field, he lived in his own time and he used it to admire the beauty of the world and the impossible things he would never experience; like a dry bed at night, a warm meal or the lack of hunger in his stomach where the feeling that if he didn’t eat soon his stomach would implode, disappeared.2

Imagining all these wonderful things, he closed his eyes and began to feel as if he was sinking deep in the earth, feeling the granite scrape by his body and warm wet mud enveloping him.3

When he woke up, everything was different. The haze that normally covered his view had vanished and he felt as though the heavy weight of responsibility had been lifted off his shoulders. Light headed, he got up to look around him. Yellow tulips, as big as himself rose above his head reflecting every colour of the sun onto his cheeks. Deep red roses bled away in the warmth of the sun, melting into the air like the sweet birds song which tore out any unpleasant feeling he had left. He walked around into this heaven of flowers and trees which created little rainbows that he stepped through, crunching with his bare feet on what looked like snow, but felt soft and warm through his toes.4

He started laughing and running, all his senses open; hearing, smelling, tasting, seeing and touching more than he could take in, in a frenzy of anticipation that had taken control of his body.5

Suddenly he came to a clearing where it seemed darker, and in the middle he saw a girl sitting on a white bench looking straight past him. As he neared her slowly, he felt agony and pain shoot through him but he kept on walking. Kneeling in front of her, for he had no strength to stand, he looked up.6

Her eyes were dark and her messy black hair trailed over her slumped shoulders. Her cherry bitten lips sealed together, as if she had never opened her mouth to speak or smile. The blank expression on her face radiated no emotion and her grey skin looked like smoke from a dirty chimney. She wore nothing but a dark green wool blanket and it pierced his heart how someone so beautiful could look so lonely and lost. He stood up, searching her gaze which went right through him.7

In this total silence which now surrounded them he whispered, “are you here?” but received no answer. He reached out his arm to her, his trembling fingers tracing over her lips, parting them slightly. A small, soft sound came from her, her eyes flickered with life for a second. “You came”, Sam heard, smiling bitterly.8

He couldn’t take this anymore. He had to rescue this vision from dissolving into darkness and show her where she was and how to exist. He picked her up, her light body swaying on his arms, and carried her out of the clearing.9

He carefully sat her down under a blossoming tree. All he could see now was her. “What’s your name?” he said, not even expecting an answer. They sat there in silence in the light of the warm sun which cast no shadows and he began to describe what he saw to her, holding her freezing hand in his.10

Days seemed to go by like this. Night would never come and the garden would never fade. Sam was not sure about the passage of time he was just content sitting by his princess, the only thing he ever felt had belonged with him. Day by day her skin would grow whiter and purer, her eyes recovering life slowly. Neither of them had slept for years as they grew up together in this garden if dreams.11

One day Sam saw a big white cloud and led the girl to look up at the sky. She then looked straight into Sam’s eyes. Her almond eyes smiled and he felt his body dissolve into her, happiness invading his mind, clearing his conscience and ending his life.