The Garden

The garden grows slowly. The rains follow the fogs and the sunsets in the place where time has stopped.

Tall grow the trees – they hold up the sky. For as long as I’ve lived, they have been my height – one foot, two feet… Now they loom over me like titans, cover the doors, climb up the walls.

These walls speak volumes. The biographies of toys and pictures, chairs and blankets intertwine, and even the dust in the curtains seems to know things about me none of the now living do.

And that knowledge is about to expire, too. Disappear with a poof. Be scattered to the four winds with the dust from the old curtains.

The house doesn’t feel like home anymore. It used to be a shrine of the summer for as long as I can remember; a living person, a quiet friend. Its sounds and smells have imprinted in my memory so hard I sometimes sense them in my sleep, miles away.

There are traditions. Like putting the tent roof onto the swing-bench. Or watching the sun set behind the red roofs from the top of the wine cellar. Asking advice of the three ancient chestnuts beyond the wall. Walking out into the corn fields, feeding the cows and collecting wild fruit in the acacia forest. Leaving a present in front of an old saint’s statue at midnight. Counting the tolls of the old church bell, and the hoots of the owls. Holding the knob of the one mysterious door on the third floor and never opening it. I used to believe that behind it was a huge golden staircase leading to the city in the sky – a city where people are happy. I’m still afraid to find myself mistaken. So the door remains closed.

I’ve spent months and months alone in this house, yet I never felt lonely. It’s because it’s inhabited. In the little outbuildings live the peasants. The Mayor of town lives in the winery. The wine cellar used to be a prison. In the tiny house with a tin roof and a slanted door lived the blacksmith, Horseshoe Elder. That’s because the door was decorated with a rusty horseshoe. He had two sons – Soot, the older one, a good, diligent worker; and Horseshoe Jr., a hooligan, a scallywag, an adventurer. He was my age, always my age, we grew up together. We stole corn from the fields, and sold rotting apples to our neighbor, and fought the evil Mayor. We fought for the common people. Horseshoe, he had a crush on me. The problem was – I was the princess. I lived in The House, our castle, and my parents were King and Queen, the rulers of the country of Alhida, who, somehow, were never there. But that’s beside the point. They wouldn’t have approved of the relationship anyways. So we met secretly, and not a single soul knew about him.

Now I find myself to be the Governor of this country. Am I a better one? Am I taking care of it well?

Horseshoe Jr. is still here. So are the peasants. But it’s beside the point too.

We’re selling it. I’m selling it. To pay off my college loans. There is no other way. My father’s second wife died in February. Their kids are here with their grandma and me. They’re sick, so I helped to take care of them. My parents both came here too. For the first time in 18 years, they are together. For the first time since I was small, this house is filled with children’s voices. Somehow, it doesn’t feel like home anymore.

Slow grows the garden. The rains fall soft on the faint rose petals. The church bell does not tell the time – it may be 20 years ago, or 20 years in the future. I hear my grandmas’ voices here – they fly into the house as butterflies and flutter about in the noise of the kitchen, as per usual. The apple trees outside the window sway dreamily.

One sunrise I will turn a key quietly and walk away as a shadow. The clocks in the house will stay still. And my past will stay with them.