Lifeline

Chapter 8; Friends.

"Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words." By George Eliot

When I was in middle school, my class went out for an excursion.

We were studying the succession of plants and hence visited a site which was destroyed by a volcanic eruption.

When we arrived said place, I'd expected to see nothing but ash and dust. But boy was I wrong.

It was beautifully located by the sea and had been turned into a sort of touristic site.

There were a lot of beautiful rocks, some which had been bathed in white wash. There were shells and so many other items left on shore that had been rinsed and put on sale.

They had also built three huts on three levels as though it were a mountain you were climbing.

Our bus dropped us off by the entrance and the guides led us through.

We climbed the first set of wooden stairs and reached hut 1. It was a simple wooden hut with palms on its roof.

Ascending to hut 2, we walked on rocks and saw the massive boulders that now stood in place of a vegetation long gone. It was nothing out of the ordinary and hut 2 looked exactly as hut 1.

I had lost interest already because it seemed all the exciting things were down by the shore, but again, I was wrong.

Now what was left was hut 3, whose ascent had been very steep and I'd fallen once and bruised my knee. I whined about my knee to anyone who was willing to listen. But, when we arrived hut 3, I decided I could bruise and scrape my knee over and over again if it meant I got to see this sight.

Hut 3 seemed to stand at the highest peak. It deviated from the passage to the left.

It had the perfect view of the sea and the water on the shore. I could see the rocks which held lichen, mosses, liverworts and ferns.

The ferns were the most beautiful... They were huge and a beautiful shade of green which glimmered in the sunlight. The area around hut 3 was definitely getting back to it's feet as could be indicated by the little pink and purple flowers one could locate on rocks.

Hut 3 was definitely the icing on the cake. Benches had been arranged on all four corners of the hut, and a table stood firmly anchored in the middle with two chairs.

This hut was different. It wasn't built from wood or covered with palms, no. It was mounted with dry canes that came from the plants which were once there.

The roof was covered with a kind of thatch I didn't know of.

The way it stood proudly up with the wonderful view which put you in the pathway of the wind all seemed angelic and very surreal.

I remember telling my friend, "if any guy were to ever bring me here, with red roses, red wine, and a red tablecloth on that center table, and asked me to marry him, I would definitely accept regardless of whatever."

I'd imagined for weeks after we left, what it would be like to go out there with someone you love, walking through hut 1, hut 2, climbing the very steep hill just to see a romantic set up waiting for you in hut 3.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I never got to live that fantasy.

But...

I just realized how the elevator which I'd count as my steep hill had actually led me to my very own hut 3.

We were on the rooftop. The roof had been beautiful decorated in hues of red and white. There was a table set for two with candles, roses and red wine. All on a red velvet tablecloth.