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In Early Spring
by Adrian N
Nah, I’d rather be here on my own, thank you very much. The birds and the jacarandas are more than enough company, and it would be a waste if this beautiful place ended up not being used at all.
But what’s that sandstone wall? I don’t remember that being there before. They don’t look like they’ve worn at all. It looks like a church, but why would there be one in the middle of the garden, and since when?
I circled around and peered inside through one of the windows. A service was being held, candlelit and attended by a dozen or so faces I have never seen around. It felt like it came from another time. It felt like a quieter celebration, almost wistful. The kind of celebration that comes with the acute notice of time passing by, even if it did bring with it an immense happiness that we hadn’t seen in a long time. It felt like it was inviting me to come in.
Now I’ve forgotten all about the festival, and when I looked behind, the walkway that led me here was gone. What I thought had been a flower garden turned out to be sparsely filled woods. And now it’s only me and this little chapel, lost in the middle of it all.
Somewhere in the woods, there was shouting. And the galloping of horses, too, getting louder and louder. They must be headed here, but from where?
It doesn’t matter because I am already on one of the horses. The man in front of me looked like a soldier. There are a dozen of us chasing an enclosed carriage ahead.
It left behind a whiff of cold air as it continued to elude us, and I could see the frost forming on grass blades as we tried to keep up.
Eventually, we began to encircle it, slowing it down and thawing the icy trail behind.
One of our stronger members, an older, dwarfish-looking brute, got close enough to force the door open, revealing a pale-skinned man with white hair and eyes sitting inside. Our poor old brute swiftly retired, frozen on the spot, and we had to leave him behind. In that instant, I knew exactly who the man was.
Unfortunately for him, our leader swiftly speared him then and there and brought the entire chase to a halt. Adrenaline rushed in my veins as I tried to keep my balance on the horse.
But it was over now. My breath comes out in clouds.
The air becomes warmer, and I watch the fruits and flowers start budding immediately as if their entire growth occurs in an instant. Shadows shift from long to short to long again. I catch glimpses of my fellow soldiers, but when I turn to look, there are only trees. The sun moves swiftly across the sky, and the shadows of night disappear as quickly as they appeared.
I feel breezes of cold and warm air passing through me as the landscape changes rapidly. The forest around me clears. Some of the trees become stumps that look freshly felled, and then there are timber houses, built one after another. The people working look like blurry shadows moving quickly, and then, eventually, the sandstone is brought in brick by brick until the chapel reforms itself as the jacarandas bloom once more.
I can hear the music from the festival dying down, but I'm not sure if it's been minutes or hours since I left. Walking back through the garden, I notice the jacarandas seem fuller than before, though I can't say exactly when that happened. It doesn't matter, though, does it?