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The closing is done. It’s done, the payment schedule is made up, and this land is his now, and Cricket...Cricket should be doing something useful like cleaning up winter debris, working out where to put the house and the moonshine shed--
Instead, he flings himself down into a patch of fallen leaves, underneath where the trees are thickest, and curls up on his side, giggling with quiet joy. There are wildflowers everywhere. Everywhere. There’s a clump of blooming wood sorrel right in front of his face, pale petals with a pink center, and there’s a little flower-fly creeping across the leaves. Something’s buzzing not too far off, along the ground. Miner bees, maybe. He can feel the vibrations in his fingertips.
Above his head there are slender, dark branches just starting to bud out with leaves such a pale green they’re almost gold, where the sun shines through. He’s been around the boundaries of this little bit of land he now, theoretically, owns. There is so much alive here. So much of it familiar he has to wonder if the Nexus ever does that on purpose. Would this place do a thing like that, as a sheer kindness? Bring forth an echo of the world he’s lost in the plant life around him now?
Trilium isn’t blooming yet, but he’s seen the leaves and the buds. On the ground there’s foamflower, goldenrod, rue and yarrow and lily-of-the-valley. He’s seen carpets of violets, pink lady’s slipper clustered under the base of trees. There’s mountain laurel and rhododendron starting to bud. Wake-robin and columbine and johnny-jump-up. Already, the dogwoods are unfurling their blooms, white and pink canopies over a riot of yellow forsythia and coral-colored quince blossom.
And there are five wild apple trees in a stand toward the edge of the clearing here. He’s going to want to plant some things, going to need a garden, but at the moment he just...doesn’t even care to think about that. It’s warm, and the breeze is soft, and everything is beautiful and perfect. Maybe he doesn’t need a house, either, hell, maybe he’ll just live here on the ground for the rest of his life and breathe in the scent of the early flowers.
Maybe people don’t get Heaven in one big chunk of eternity. Maybe they get it like this, in little bitty slices all through their existence, and the trick is to string the pieces together like beads on a wire, and just wear it, always.
Instead, he flings himself down into a patch of fallen leaves, underneath where the trees are thickest, and curls up on his side, giggling with quiet joy. There are wildflowers everywhere. Everywhere. There’s a clump of blooming wood sorrel right in front of his face, pale petals with a pink center, and there’s a little flower-fly creeping across the leaves. Something’s buzzing not too far off, along the ground. Miner bees, maybe. He can feel the vibrations in his fingertips.
Above his head there are slender, dark branches just starting to bud out with leaves such a pale green they’re almost gold, where the sun shines through. He’s been around the boundaries of this little bit of land he now, theoretically, owns. There is so much alive here. So much of it familiar he has to wonder if the Nexus ever does that on purpose. Would this place do a thing like that, as a sheer kindness? Bring forth an echo of the world he’s lost in the plant life around him now?
Trilium isn’t blooming yet, but he’s seen the leaves and the buds. On the ground there’s foamflower, goldenrod, rue and yarrow and lily-of-the-valley. He’s seen carpets of violets, pink lady’s slipper clustered under the base of trees. There’s mountain laurel and rhododendron starting to bud. Wake-robin and columbine and johnny-jump-up. Already, the dogwoods are unfurling their blooms, white and pink canopies over a riot of yellow forsythia and coral-colored quince blossom.
And there are five wild apple trees in a stand toward the edge of the clearing here. He’s going to want to plant some things, going to need a garden, but at the moment he just...doesn’t even care to think about that. It’s warm, and the breeze is soft, and everything is beautiful and perfect. Maybe he doesn’t need a house, either, hell, maybe he’ll just live here on the ground for the rest of his life and breathe in the scent of the early flowers.
Maybe people don’t get Heaven in one big chunk of eternity. Maybe they get it like this, in little bitty slices all through their existence, and the trick is to string the pieces together like beads on a wire, and just wear it, always.
