Falling in the Garden

Chapter Sixteen - Garden

Chapter Sixteen

Garden

I could see only what my flashlight allowed. With sweeping motions, I explored the past in a stunned daze.

Here was Ashley’s true house: a large, underground bunker—possibly an early version of those used as refuge from imminent nuclear war. As I reached the bottom of the ladder, I found myself in the largest room. To the left was a kitchen area and to the right a bathroom. Forward was the living area. On the left wall were shelves of books, all hardcover. Most certainly belonged to Ashley’s parents. History. Warfare. Toward the bottom shelves, however, I found books that I knew were Ashley’s: The Hobbit, Peter Pan, The General Theory of Relativity, and many others. I had copies of many of these same books, though with much later printing dates. I wondered why she wasn’t able to take any of these before she left. Reverently, I touched the spines of these texts, but did not pull any out.

Next, I turned to the opposite side of the room and found a small sofa, some chairs and the old radio. This beautiful artifact sat upon a low table and I knelt down to it, turning the thick power knob to the right. Click! The radio did not hum to life. I did not expect it to. All I could see was Ashley kneeling before it as I now was. Listening. Speaking to a stranger from the future. I ran my fingers along the wooden case, the soft speaker grill and tuning dial. She must have moved it back into this room after discovering it was no longer integral to our communication.

There were two more rooms left to explore. The first belonged to her parents, but held only a large bed and empty end table. The dull, metal walls were bare. The other room belonged to Ashley. Her bed was smaller. Her walls were covered with pictures from magazines, clippings from newspapers. Pictures she, or maybe Sarah, had drawn. On a table beside to her bed was a stack of papers. I would discover upon closer examination that these were the stories she and I had dreamed up together. She had found the time to write them all down. There were dozens of poems as well. Each of them breathed her sweet voice, echoing the full depth of her character.

Without realizing what I was doing, I reclined on her bed and stretched out in exhaustion. There was a stale smell to this subterranean dwelling, but not in her room. Here, I could still smell her wind-blown hair and the warmth of her skin. I closed my eyes and brought her back from inside that strange, blue sphere. Brought her back home and to me. At first it was easy. I could imagine her lying next to me, her face so very close to mine. We did not talk. We only watched each other, smiling. The longer I looked into her eyes, however, the more difficult this painful fantasy became. First, I could not recall her eye color. Then, with despair, her entire face began to leave my mind. I buried my face in her pillow, but it all fell impossibly away. I wanted to open my eyes, to reconfirm it really was her room, but overwhelming emotions were building up quickly inside me. It felt like a month ago that I held her (really held her), though it had only been a matter of minutes. I would have years to try and make sense of what happened, but as I lie there I knew for the first time the cold, dead fact that it was all over.

Ashley was gone.

Some undefined time later, I woke to thunder, having to break past that strange confusion of rousing in an unfamiliar place. I was no longer in possession of my flashlight. The room around me was a thick, soupy blackness. I could not even see the covers before my face. Searching the bed first, hoping to find the flashlight, I discovered instead something beneath the pillow. After a second or two, I could tell that it was a sealed envelope. With my free hand, I continued to search and found the flashlight off to the left side of the bed. Unfortunately, I hadn’t turned it off and the batteries were unresponsive. So, moving by memory of where things were, I managed to find the stack of Ashley’s writing and made it back to the entry portal without slamming painfully into anything. The door must have fallen closed at some point while I was asleep. Not knowing what time it was, I expected more darkness from above.

When I emerged, it was mid-morning. Reality seemed to have forgotten me. I was a creature who did not follow the rules and had been dutifully left behind. At least, this is how I felt.

Before closing the portal, I noticed something etched boldy on the rim of the circular hatch:

G.A.R.D.E.N.

Geo-Atomic Recessed Dwelling

and Experimental Node

These words bothered me greatly. What exactly did this Experimental Node do? Atomic?

I let the door to the past fall and would never again go down. That next evening, I watched in dread and wonder as a huge helicopter hovered above The Meadow. Another cadre of alien-clothed soldiers quickly attached cables to the metal rung. With little effort, the mysterious house (now a dull, empty metallic casket) was disinterred and flown off to some mystery destination. There was no effort made to fill in the grave-shaped hole in the ground. The Meadow was defiled. All was gone.

The envelope I had found under her pillow was the only thing that helped me stay focused. It was the letter in that envelope and an email waiting for me when I returned home that awful morning that helped keep me from falling apart.

I could fill many pages explaining how I spent my life since that day. That I never married. That I tried, without success, to contact Sarah. Instead, I’ll tell you what I’ve learned these many long years. Sometimes, you simply cannot give up. Sometimes, that is all we have. Despite all the quantum mechanics I’ve read through (which only opened small, dark windows rather than doors) I know that what happened could not have been of pure mistake or accident.

Many of my questions were answered in the following two letters I now leave you with. Other questions are still ghosts that will not let me be. Such hateful things, these spiteful phantoms—always waiting at the terminal edge of my searching soul.