Of Ruined Walls and Wildflowers

In the heart of the forest, a high, wrought iron fence stretches out beneath the trees and the pouring summer rain. Beyond it, the world of birdsong and fragrant pine gives way. A small path meanders lazily up a blank clothed in tall grass and wild flowers: overgrown, little more than a fresh-washed strip of hard-baked earth between the lazy blossom.

I stand on tiptoe to peer through the bars…

The thunder rolls…

At the crown of the bank, there is some kind of garden. Once, it looks as though it may have been something that was delicate and carefully tended by tender, loving hands (something that was apart from the world that lies around it, something… private), but now the red bricks that once enfolded it have weathered and crumbled down to ruin: the slumped remnants of a wall; a scattering of rough, rain-polished, red ochre-coloured pebbles; a stray scrap here and there of powdery, honey-coloured mortar.

The garden has grown wild…

The black metal bars of the railing before me sing out like well-struck crystal in the rain as I walk along beside it and run my storm-slick fingers along its rungs.

At last, I find the gate into the garden: wrought iron, twisted into a metal painting of a climbing rose within its arching frame.

I take the rusting key from my dress pocket…

I turn it in the lock…

The gate protests with centuries of disuse as I press myself against it. Slowly, it shudders open.

The sky is perfect silver-grey…

I step into the garden.