Her There is a beautiful, golden garden. The sun is at evening and it casts a golden hour over everything, especially Her. The gold is as sweet as a crisp apple, as bright and breathtaking as fire, as gentle as Her palms, and as warm as the sun itself. She dances through the light, eyes as wide as the world, trying to take every glimpse in. The beauty is outstanding. But where did she come from? And when she asks this question to herself, she forgets the gold. She has someplace to be. How could she get so lost? The dread descends upon her hopelessly childish heart, she starts running. The golden hour is ending. She did not get to breath all of the gold before it fled. Her bare feet crunch on dead grass, and she runs towards the nearest tree. The garden is still beautiful, but she cannot see it. She must escape. She distracts herself with running. She doesn’t see anything except everything all at once, in a blur, sprinting past her, in the opposite direction. She stops. There is a short, wide tree, with autumn leaves and darkest bark. She sees something dangling from the tree. She wearily steps closer. “Hello,” the dangling thing greets. She recognizes it. It recognizes Her. She freezes in absolute and utter shock. Her stunned, big, doe eyes do not blink. She is still like a deer in headlights; headlights of a car that is sure to leave it injured and unable. The dangling thing stares back, almost expectantly. It looked like merely an effigy of a person; a half-dead scarecrow. “I’m so sorry,” she, the innocent deer, breathes. It is almost a whisper. “It’s…no problem,” the dangling thing struggles. The dangling thing has never been a victim until recently. It had made sure of it. It hadn’t always been swinging tirelessly from a oak just after golden hour, you know. At one time it could walk, but he avoided gardens, because you could be easily seen in gardens. People in gardens were always looking for something, or looking at everything. I digress. The doe’s eyes narrowed. Her eyebrows met each other in the middle. In exasperation she waves her hands around. She stomps. She must be going now, but she did not like that answer. “What?” She scoffs. She mumbles, under her breath, nonsensical words about the dangling thing lying. A time passes. “What is your favorite color?” She asks. She knows the answer. But it will lie and say the truth. Because it does not think of what it likes until she asks. Or, at least, that’s how things were. “Green,” She had predicted this. “What’s yours?” “Lavender. Or maybe orange. Definitely not lilac, and probably not pink.” Of course Her answer had changed. Deer keep moving no matter what. Dangling things sway at best. “Why don’t you like lilac? It is the same as lavender,” the dangling thing retorted. “No! It isn’t!” The doe gasped in playful offense. “I hate lilac!” The dangling thing knew she would say such a thing, and chuckled sadly. “Stop that, you know. You know what I mean, stop it,” it advised. “I know,” the innocuous girl sighed. The dangling thing would never really say that, but it would feel it. She looks up at the sky. It is a lavender color, as always it is when the sun is setting. In this place, the sun sets the same everyday because the painter of the sunset does not believe she can-or rather, should-paint anymore than a lavender sky. “I must be off now,” she chokes. She already starts to tear up. She had revisited her memory for the first time. She bids farewell to the tree and its inhabitant and starts to briskly canter home, careful and quick. She comes back to this place-the garden, and then the tree-after a while. She, without greeting, goes to the dangling thing. “If, right now, I were to fall, would you be there?” It didn’t answer. She didn’t need an answer from it. The answer was: “I would never be able to catch you, you know.” The dangling thing knew. “We have never caught each other. We’ve just sat by each others sides and listened to one another complain. You understood me, but were too selfish to help. I never understood you.” She knows this. She still asked, blindly. The dangling thing hung, eerily and deathly quiet. The dangling thing had left this place. It was not in Her garden anymore. But she kept imagining it. She will never see it again. She will never see it as himself ever again. Just memories. For her, this means he might as well be dead. She gasps at the thought. She sobs. She looks at her hands. They have blood on them; his. He died from something; she killed him. She is not an innocent forest animal like she keeps imagining herself. She has always been a predator; not an apex predator, though. One who is also prey. One, who, also being hunted, can attempt to justify their own instincts. Although, if she did something other than eating others, maybe less people would want to eat Her. (Continue below.)
She finally calms down. She runs away from the tree. She pauses abruptly in a dark area of the forest, where light would often filter softly through the leaves unto the muddy and overgrown ground. She collapses onto the forest floor. She sighs. She throws her head back. She slowly blinks open. Through the canopy, she sees the sky. Golden hour has passed. Despite herself, she has painted the sunset the same as always. But, even now, she smiles to herself at seeing it. She widens her eyes and doesn’t blink. She try, try, tries desperately to remember it in every detail. She blinks slowly one more time. When she opens her eyes, she decides the sky is lilac. —-tysm for reading! Plz comment ;D Notes: 1. Drawing by me! 2. This short story is mostly and very symbolic. If you have a question about a particular choice of words, feel free to ask!
