This story is the result of a prompt I did with the writing group I’m a member of. I don’t remember exactly what the prompt was, but it was something like, you walk into a garden. I just let myself go and came up with this.
Open Doors
The smell of jasmine, mint and rosemary delicately float in the air and make their way into my nose, bringing back memories of a time long ago when my grandmother was still alive and able to tend her garden. She’s gone now, but the trellis still stands, with its dead vines snaking around the cheap metal that acts as the only entry into her garden. The surrounding grass, before you pass under the arch, makes a brittle crunching noise as I step on it, dead with no one left to care for it. The garden is a wasteland, but I wonder where the vibrant smells are coming from.
Before my eyes, the dead landscape stretches beyond the trellis, but then a distortion suddenly spreads across an invisible barrier that separates me from the garden. It reminds me of my old black and white television set when the signal was lost, but before I can even begin to understand what’s going on, the static vanishes. The memory of my old T.V. reminds me that I’m no longer that young kid who used to bound about, eager to help her grandmother plant green beans in the spring, and it ignites a flooding pain in my joints.
My day dream is interrupted when the flicker returns, but this time when the distortion disappears, her garden suddenly sprouts to life, and I watch in wonder as her jasmine plants blooms into delicate white flowers that cover the trellis right before my eyes. As I wonder what’s happening, I see the leaves of tomatoes plants, now tall and green again, fluttering under the soft cover of water being sprayed on them. To my right, bees hover over cone shaped honeysuckle flowers, their green vines twisting along her chain link fence. A soft breeze flows through the leaves of her cumquat tree, giving the otherwise quiet wind the sound of soft rustling.
On my side of the garden entryway, the sun is beating down on me with no wind to stir the stagnant August air. Is it my mind forming visions of what I want to see? It’s true I fought the truth of her death, even refused to walk by her casket because I knew she couldn’t possibly be in there, that she was surely at home in her favorite place, her garden, and what was resting in that oak box was a stranger stolen from the morgue. My heart ached for the people who had lost their loved one at the hospital.
My curious mind stirs to life again. Who is holding the hose that’s watering her garden? Just as the thought comes to me, a sandaled foot steps out from the edge of the house, followed by a thin body moving slowing into my view. Just as slowly, she turns to face me, her beautiful blue eyes twinkling in the sunlight, and her happy smile set in an eighty year old face, warms me, and lifts the weight that has been pressing on my heart ever since her death.
Holding a small trowel in her wrinkled hand, she begins to move towards me from her side of the trellis, and in a response to possibly seeing a ghost, I jump back a step, quickly embarrassed by my reaction to my grandmothers advancement, but she appears to be unaffected by it. She reaches out her hand, careful not to cross the invisible barrier created by the trellis, and speaks in that comforting voice I have come to treasure. “Stacey, it’s so good to see you.”
Tears instantly form, flooding my face right before I fall to my knees onto the crispy grass. What kind of horrible, torturous trick is this and who is playing it upon me? My voice trembles when I find the strength to speak. “I’ve missed you so much grandma.”
Taking a moment, she carefully looks me over, her eyes resting on my tight shirt that I know snugly exposes my bony chest and rib cage, before she returns a disappointed stare. “You haven’t been taking care of yourself.”
It’s true. I haven’t been eating much, and rarely leave the house. My grandmother is everything to me and losing her stole my will to live. I take a moment to sniffle back the mucus that’s threatening to escape my nose, and return my defense. “I don’t want to go on without you anymore. I just can’t. There’s nothing here for me now. Please take me with you.”
Just as the words escape my mouth, I wrap my hands around my thighs and push myself up, and then take a step towards the threshold. I don’t care if she tries to convince me otherwise, but no matter how determined I am, every time I try to cross over to the other side of jasmine filled archway, I fall back down. My legs are too weak, and I decide that I’m not beyond crawling. When I look back up into her worried eyes she says, “If you come with me, you can never go back home.”
The idea of being with my grandma again jolts the much needed energy through my heart that I need to stand up. “Grandma, I don’t care if I ever come back. I just want to be with you.”
She watches my trembling knees as I try to hold my body up, and I can see a sigh force her chest to rise. When I take two quick steps forward, she extends her hand through the trellis door. I don’t need time to contemplate what the fallout will be, I just grab up her hand in mine. Slowly, she leads me through the opening, and when I step onto the lush grass on the other side, my body feels as light as a butterfly drifting on the wind.
Grandma smiles and pulls me into her arms, her warm tight hug that starts joyful tears stream down my face. Beyond our embrace, birds chirp their happy tunes, and the sight and smell of a garden full of life, accosts my senses.
When her embrace lightens she says, “I love you Stacey.”
Squeezing her once last time before deciding it’s ok to let her go, I return, “I love you too grandma.”
Eager to see what she’s done with her garden, I’m anxious to explore it, but a strong urge to turn back around, and look at the trellis. refuses to let me rest. What will I see? I just want to be with my grandma. What if I turn around and never see her again? I can’t handle that, but I can’t stop the nagging compulsion.
Somehow, like always, grandma mysteriously reads my mind, moves to face me, and places her hand on my shoulder. “I will still be here after you look. I promise.”
Tremors race through my heart, but I turn around anyway, and again fall to my knees. Beyond the trellis, the grass is still dead, and so is my body, crumpled up on the ground, lifeless and curled up into the fetal position. I can’t stop the gasp that escapes me.
I turn my horror stricken eyes to face my grandmother, who is thankfully still standing beside me. She steadies me and smiles in that warm your heart kind of way, and says, “Your suffering is over. I’ve been sent to bring you home.”