Sacred Garden

Brenda inspected her skin and was satisfied with its cleanliness, so she then dunked her head beneath the surface and attended to her locks. When she climbed back onto the bank, the lady looked squeaky-clean. The thunder had slashed at the stillness of the morning sky all the time that Brenda had been washing.

A tremendously loud crack from just over the hill sent the startled woman cringing backwards and almost tumbling into the stream. This was immediately trailed by a roar in the heavens overhead. The smell of ozone permeated the forest air, and a waft of something else. Then came a huge crash in the woods and something so large had been moved that she could feel its impact through the ground. Still shaken, Brenda pondered the other aroma, but she could not place it. The rain increased its intensity to a downpour, nearly obliterating all scents.

Brenda climbed into her hiking outfit as quickly as she could, but her clothes were soaked before she could get her poncho on. With her woodland satchel in tow, she started her return route, to gather her other belongings. The sharp smell in the air was stronger in this direction and resisted the cleansing powers of the deluge.

As she emerged from the Laurel thicket, Brenda stopped and numbly dropped her pack to the ground. Then she collapsed to her knees and wept, " No! No! Oh my God! Please Noooo! "

Lying before her were the remains of her Old Man of the Woods. He had been sheared by a lightning bolt two feet above the ground. His mighty trunk had toppled and landed across the quagmire. The Maple's fall had cast mud for yards around the on bay's bottom. The stump protruded from the pond's bed like a broken and splintered tooth.

Brenda jumped up and ran out to the smoking stub of a trunk and put her hands gently upon the bark. Are you alive, she thought. " Are you alive? "she said under her breath. The was no reply. She sensed the silence was different than earlier times. " ARE YOU ALIVE?!! " Brenda howled skyward, already knowing the answer. She bent her head and wept again. As she whimpered, she searched her memories of him and received instead a memory of himself. He had known of the time, to the moment, that his death would be. His words, " Go now quickly, but remember me always, " and " Remember me, please. " were issued to departing lady with that knowledge.

Looking at the pond's bottom, Brenda noticed her silk scarf. Using her fingers, she scooped the earth from between two of the roots and inserted the kerchief into it. Then she returned to shore and gathered her negligée and pumps. She returned to the Maple's corpse and placed these in the cache with the neckpiece. Brenda sealed the cairn with humus from the bog.

Despondent, she returned to shore. Through her tear stung eyes she saw the neon green cylinder at the lagoon's edge. It had been cast to the grassy beach by the blast that had felled the Swamp Maple. She picked it up and looked back at the stump. No, she thought, he had used this with me and I will respectfully preserve it.

Brenda gathered her belongings and stopped for one more, long look at her deceased lover. The rain was dwindling and would soon stop. It would be sunny and breezy this afternoon, and very cold tonight. An early snow would come to this place in eighteen days. She knew this not by her intuition alone, but by the intuition built upon a mass of memories encompassing almost four hundred years totaled.

"I will return to here one more time, " Brenda promised herself aloud. " I will be back one final time. "

© copyright avatar302 6/11/02