by Eygló
There is something growing on the trees. It’s alive. I noticed the first time I got here, but I still don’t know what it is. It looks as much alive as the trees it lives on.
I can’t remember what I was doing here the first time I came, or how I got here, and I don’t much care. I remember I just wanted to sneak a peek. I knew it was magical and that I wasn’t supposed to be here. It was dark and the darkness made everything look grey and mystical. I was so excited, this was my Narnia, a dark and frightening one.
I walk along the fence, among the trees. They look so old, as if they are antediluvian — and maybe they are? What do I know about this place? What do I know of its history? Of its life before me? Nothing. Or not much. I just know that I found it, and that when I come here to walk among the trees the fog thickens and the wind chimes in the distance sound low and muffled, but can still, always, be heard.
When I get to the trees with the silver leaves, I always stay and just watch for a while. I can almost see the sensibility, feelings, dreams radiating a slight aura around them. The beings on the bark seem to thrive there especially. I always take a long time walking underneath those trees, hoping I can find a leaf that has fallen to the ground.
When I do, I pick it up carefully and go to sit down by the fence. I lean towards it, but it isn’t very comfortable, the wood is old and it needs to be repainted, it’s easy to get splinters if you’re not careful. But it is better than sitting by the trees. They don’t give much support and always seem to squirm away, like a fidgety child that doesn’t like you very much but is too polite, or too shy, to say it.
The silvery leaves that fall to the ground are filled with dreams that aren’t mine. It’s quite wonderful. I sit with the leaf in my hand, feeling the heaviness of it and the rough texture between my fingers and the way it emanates the strongest of emotions. Emotions I have never even felt before come to me, and in my mind's eye I see things, wilderness, landscapes so fantastic that I doubt anything like it has ever existed in the whole wide world. I see wonderful people, evil doers, monsters, men and women who lived long ago, or who never lived at all. I see tales, long and short, told like they are playing right here within me, like they belong to me, like they are my own memories. And they become a part of me. I hide them within me.
I never pick the leaves that haven’t fallen. They aren’t ripe and I know that plucking them, before they are ready, leads to nothing but madness and death. I was warned by someone who used to wander the garden, if a garden is what you can call this place: a garden is kept but this place keeps you, like a rose in the shade. She was an old woman, smaller than a mouse with grey wavy hair and cold eyes. She whispered the secret to the leaves, said that the leafs would claim me if I broke the rules. Then she walked into the garden, plucked a big leaf of one of the silvery maples, sat down by the picked fence and just vanished.
I saw it all, in my mind's eye, from one of the leaves, and I don’t know if she is me or I am her. But I know the same thing will happen to me one day. I don’t fear it. I don’t dread it. I will become a memory here myself, a dream, and I will hide in the garden until I am ready to fall and if I’m lucky someone will pick up that particular leaf, feel the smooth texture underneath her fingers and be overwhelmed by the stories, by the notion that I’ve stored.
And I will always belong to this place, because I am your wildest dream and this is where dreams come to hide.
Spark by Michael Marshall Smith
Eygló was born and bred in Kópavogur, Iceland. She studied literary theory at the University of Iceland before moving to the south of Sweden where she is playing house, taking pictures, writing, reading, running and living, when there is time. She never grew up enough to start drinking coffee, but she does know how to pronounce Eyjafjallajökull and how to do a fishtail braid. Instagram and Site.
Where Dreams Hide is copyright © Eygló 2015