Heaven on Earth: A Fable

I'm an old man who's seen too many things, and I'll tell you today that all of it leads somewhere -- wherever you're heading, there's a place for it.

Soon after finishing my work and especially on my days off, I like to walk out from my house and just beyond the town so I can try to find myself through reflection. I've built a gazebo in a meadow out there overlooking misty woods stretching for miles. I was much younger when I built it, but she's still strong, shady, and made of oak.

In this area, the sun gleams heavy in that semi-open plain, and with the humidity so high, relaxing outside of shade is entirely too bothersome. The rare mornings I'm able to visit my retreat, though still sleepy, are the most peaceful visits. Dew glistens from its nest in the grass, waiting for the sun to drag it into the firmament -- as far as you can see, even embodying the houses in the distance and on to the legion of trees I gaze upon from my lowly hill.

It seems to me that the sun is most profound when it appears harmlessly on the horizon, a stagnant globe as if sleeping -- that deep orange diluting the night. Supple light begins to overlap the tree's crests and trickle its way into the horizon. Only in my imagination, deeply suppressed, are the thoughts of fire or discomfort; in the mornings, I only see life and I embrace it entirely.

This one-day, however, was a hot and humid evening, and perhaps one of the more perturbing days of the summer. It had rained earlier, and walking along the trail away from town, I could see cesspools barraging the meadow along side of me and a brigade of mosquitoes hunting the air. Other than the gravel crunching beneath my feet and the smell of the ancient spring growing and growing, I could hardly control the impression that I was wading through a marshy swamp. The sound of crickets and crows from within the woods were unnaturally loud -- so deafening I had to manage a tight leash on my thoughts or they would wander astray -- and still lingering in the ethereal air, sloshing above me in the atmosphere, were sullen and inky clouds putrefying themselves in the distance.

Upon reaching my gazebo, I tried to relax, sitting on the bench, listening only for the wind, but it was impossible with the ruckus. Disturbed, I sat up and did my best at comfortable-my ritual.

The sound of rapid footsteps awoke me from my reflection soon after as my son came raging along my tracks, his right hand in a fist, his face of confined joy. I was brisk, and I thought he had something for me even before his hand was upheld for my acknowledgment-his face then pure joy.

Gripped, for who knows how long, in his fat and sweaty, dirt encrusted palm, was a lonely seed. The size raised my brow and I asked what he had and where he got it. As he answered, I inspected the seed.

"I think it's a seed! I found it in the road...."

How strange, I thought, and I took the time to interrogate.

"What were you doing in the street?" I asked, looking over my glasses and studying him well.

He gave me his best answer in that he journeyed into the street just for the seed. Probably so, I figured, and further questioning seemed unimportant to me after seeing him say it.

The seed had the shape of a peach seed in that it was bulky, engraved, and perplexing in portrayal. I immediately noticed the strange colors radiating and sinking within the seed's skin and realized that it was almost all brown but somehow gave off a green luster; I assumed from baking in the pavement, however, no sign of it being burnt was found upon the utmost scrutiny.

"You want to plant it?" I asked.

"But that's all there is!" he fearfully exclaimed.

Since he was speaking the truth, I returned the seed and clasped it in his hand as I guided him away from the gazebo, understanding his sentiments and accepting them. We walked carefully to not disrupt the scattered sloughs and I continued our conversation.

"That's true, but don't you want to see what it will grow?" I asked. "What if it gets so big you can climb in it, or it make fruits we can eat?"

His head, silent, only wandered to his hand.

"Won't that be cool!?" I kept on.

Still looking dubious, he agreed by nodding, and we planted the seed in a muddy and shallow hole together, away from the gazebo. I couldn't help but sense what I thought was regret as we stood above our creation, his treasure no longer visible, completely inactive in his mind as if it were shut out -- and the crickets were screaming.

"Let's go buddy, it's going to be a while," I said and jumbled his hair with my hand.

Now as I write this, my body brittle and my soul ripe, I can't help but rest my eyes upon that original tree grown into a collection separated from the woods. Its trunk, like a human arm, reaches with a myriad of fingers into the sky. The fruit, a Spanish melon, I believe, grows as it should and provides my family and I nourishment and entertainment. All of them now harbor profusion of life -- from squirrels to Mocking birds and bees, and even this vicious strain of vine that gives birth to an igneous orange blossom -- a nearly exact manifestation of my adored sunrise.

That day, complete with its dreary showers, the eerie sounds of the woods, and the intrusion of the blood-sucking mosquitoes, still, and more each visit where I watch the trees breathing where we had planted, becomes far more satisfying than any morning visit.

My son began reverently planting any seed he could find, and the new trees that sprung up and are shaking in the wind only solidify the sublimity of that day.

Forever I'll recall the livid objection from him and how passionate he was of preserving the seed, not knowing that if it so grows, one will become many.

I only wish to see the gazebo -- or better even yet -- to not be able to see the gazebo amidst our copious forest of Spanish What-have-you. Our lives created together to grow beneath the sun.