untitled
an excerpt

The Veil, in all its lush glory, beckoned me, and like one hypnotised, I went to it. In my bare feet with the briars and leaves scratching my delicate skin, I stepped into the Veil as one steps into a curtained room. But the jungle that existed for me on the outside vanished, and instead I saw a barren wasteland - earth that had been so desecrated its spirit would not allow anything to grow there. In fact, the sky was completely darkened by the dust in the air. There were no animals, no birds, no noise of any kind - just a deafening quiet which hung in the dusty air like part of the desert. It was then I began to cry. I knew this place did not exist, not yet, for in the vision I knew myself to be older and more familiar with the wasteland than I was in my childhood. Yet I also knew that when this occurred, I would be distraught, devastated even, at the loss of the mystique of my jungle. So I wept, and my tears fell onto the baked earth beneath me. But they were not stayed - they spread. Like a vast ocean, my tears spread into the cracks and hollows of the desert and filled them, filled them until my knees were covered in salty water and my nightgown swirled in the eddies. I gasped at the newness of the world at my feet - suddenly the sky was clear, the sun shone brightly, and the land which was still untouched by teary water was now green, lush and growing. There was something in me, something that could change the wasteland into a version of its former glory, something I had not known existed until now. It was...

And I awoke, tears hardened on my face, not knowing what it was that made me special enough to turn desert to ocean. As a child, I found the answer unsatisfactory. I realize now, with the passage of time, that had I known the answer then, I would not have grown to be the woman I have become.