Sanctuary

Jane liked the crunch the leaves made as she walked towards her sanctuary. Brown, gold, and red remains from summer still rained down in the brightly lit forest. Many remains, who had refused to be pronounced dead, still clung the great mother that once gave life to them, but now takes it away to insure her own survival.

Jane remembers trying to catch all those leaves as a child. At the time where her parents hadn’t minded she went into the forest. She remembers how often she really came here. Everyday, every single day. Books were brought here, as well as paints, drawing paper, and even a close friend or two. The wind would always blow away most of the remnants of her fun as if in jealousy, but quickly Jane forgave it when the wind played the most wonderful music against the children of the forest. Although, Jane has never seen an ocean, she knows that it’s the same sound as waves hitting the sand.

Whenever she became bored, scared, or angry, she would go to the deepest part of the forest. This area hid her sanctuary. A small clearing. Jane loved this place down to it’s deepest root. She love it in all seasons. When it was being born in the warmth of Spring, growing to maturity with Summer, dieing in Autumn’s hand, and dead in Winter’s grave. Jane never felt as happy as when she was there.

All this happiness ended when her parents decided she was too old to be playing with leaves. Instead of letting Jane play, they gave her lessons to learn and places to be. She never had enough time to do anything but sleep and eat. It would be months before Jane realized that they were trying to turn her into them. Dull and pointless. Jane feared that her only reason for living would be to work at a job she hated and forcing that frustration onto her children.

Jane fought their idea of fate. The repetitiveness of the nature that was passed onto them. If it could be called nature. She mused that the human mind could not be of nature. Thoughts were not solid, even if the things that made it were. It’s thoughts that make people believe that they can conquer anything, even the greatest mother. Only to be proven wrong over and over again in the most devastating ways.

She left one night. In autumn, after years of absence, Jane went back.

Jane liked the crunch the leaves made as she walked towards her sanctuary. Her lost world of safety she loved so dearly. She remembered the path well. On her way, nothing had seemed to change. The forest was still beautiful and the children still clung to life, the mothers still standing tall.

Sadly, as Jane just realized as she stepped in to her childhood clearing, not even the greatest wonders of nature can stand against the greediest of human beings. It was gone. Raped by developers and money-hungry men with idle time and no compassion. Gone were the trees and the flowers, even most of the grass. Houses and a new street buried her childish daydreams under their cement and dead wood.

Jane returned home heart-broken. She no longer had any place she could escape to. Escape her parent’s standards, their ideals, and their idea of fate. Jane didn’t die for many years, but she never really lived either.

End

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