The Secret Glade

On the path that she was randomly and aimlessly taking down the green hills and in between the blue and white hyacinths there was a river. She stood there in the middle of the glade which was located somewhere she was not familiar with, her eyes tried to encompass everything as she gasped; the kind of gasp that is only heard before such splendid beauty that even the thoughts in your mind would stop to admire. And somewhere in the middle of all the colors, there were the pinks of dawn, so rich in color it almost stained her white dress.

On her skin were patches, they were not visible to the eyes but they were deeply, disturbingly felt, like poison. She held her hair as if a ponytail and swayed her left foot on the surface of the river

“What was that making the river so luminous, so alive?” She did not understand, as the sun was not visible yet. Nothing was flowing along with the river, there absolute silence besides her breath and the waterfall.

The water was a bit cold, but not cold enough to make her think twice about testing the waters further. She kneeled down to clutch the bottom of her dress in both of her hands so she would dip her legs fully inside. And as she did, the patch on her upper right leg detached from her skin and immediately dissolved into nothing in the water, and a tingling feeling of relief ran through her veins. Without thinking twice, she dipped both of her legs and drenched her body in water, and it was as if the water kept reducing the weight of something she carried for long. She looked up at the sky and thought she must have spent at least six hours here, but could the same thing that was making the river glow, make time as weightless as a feather?

She opened her eyes and it was 3 a.m and something was different; there wasn’t a hint of a patch left on her skin.

But where is the river? And where is the secret glade ?

© 2015 ALIA SULTAN