Whassit Tooh-Ya

Haven

Sunday, 4. January 2009, 10:00:07

I dreamt about it again. By that stage, it must have been at least a dozen times. Every one identical down to the last detail.

I didn't want to tell them. I knew how they'd react, but how long could I ignore the dreams? They were visions - I knew what I was looking for, and where to go. I can't explain it - I just... Did.

Enlightening them both would be hard. Perhaps impossible. I had to share it, but I had to pick the right time.

My father was out somewhere, talking with traders. He says that traders don't live anywhere, they just go from place to place. He swaps those weird pills my mother made for their food and tools.

My mother? Making weird pills. I don't know what they are, but she collects things from the area nearby and puts them all together in a pot and cooks them. The mixture looks sticky. I watch her as she rolls a tiny glob of it into small ball, then flattens it slightly.

Rolls...

Flattens.

Rolls...

Flattens.

I had asked her why we live out here in the sand. Why we're alone. Why I'm not allowed to go farther than the dune a few steps from our hut.

She doesn't like to talk about it, and dad, dad just gets all quiet and angry. I know that I wasn't born here. I think that we had to leave our old home and now it is too dangerous to find it again.

But I had to tell them.
When we sat together to eat that night, I swallowed my fear and approached the subject.

While my mother wept, my father yelled. He was not going to entertain childish fantasy, he said. I was not to ever, ever, leave the homestead, he said.

I went to bed early at the order of my father, but of course I could not sleep...

I was awake long enough to hear my parents talking about Haven. They agreed that a journey so perilous would be foolish to undertake. After all, nobody had seen it in ten years. They discussed my dreams, and came to the understanding that I was not to be told the shocking truth of my visions.

Well, of course, that made up my mind.

The following morning I watched my father strap on his boots and leave the hut, my mother rolling and flattening those acrid-smelling pills. I told her I was going to find some beetles, and for a moment I didn't think she'd allow me to leave, but, with an unsteady smile, she gave me the barest nod of assent.

I walked quickly then, to the dune, where I paused. It was a big thing for me to stand on this sandhill. I'd never been allowed to.

With a small glance back to the hut, I stepped forward into the unknown.

I don't know how long I had been travelling, but I was feeling sick, the small gourd of water I'd brought now filled with sand, my skin blistered from the heat, unable to see any signs of life around me.

I came to a rockface, then. I shielded my eyes as I peered upward to ascertain the size of the rock, and as I took in it's height my mouth unwittingly gaped open, forcing a coughing fit from my angry throat at this unwanted gift of sand.

I had not found a rock. I had found a mountain. And not just any mountain, no - the one from the vision!

My heart skipped a beat. I was almost there, I knew it! What lay over the rocks was something I only knew from an old picture book - fields and fields of green. And there would be daisies, pansies, tulips, daffodils, animals, trees! People! All these things known to me only by ink on paper were now so physically close I could barely contain myself!

This knowledge gave me strength I had lost days before. My jaw set, I scrambled up the hard, rough surface, tears coursing patterns down my filthy face. I was almost there! My family would be saved!

My parents never openly informed me about just how much we were struggling out there, but I knew. And now I had saved us all! They'd not be angry when they saw me next, no - because, behind me would be their old friends, ready to take them back to Haven, the green land.

These thoughts are what got me up that stony giant. Once atop, I collapsed, panting. I needed to rest before I began my descent to Haven, or surely I'd faint and fall.

A few minutes passed, and my heart would not slow. I guessed my excitement was too much to calm me, so I finally straightened up to peer over the other side.

I sobbed harder than I ever had, I think.

Below me lay acre after acre of emerald blades, dotted with yellows, pinks, blues, every colour so bright, brighter than anything I'd ever seen. I swear my eyes burned at the intensity of colour.

I fell to my knees, unable to blink, to slow my heart. I could see tiny droplets of water weighing down a petal, a leaf, a blade of grass. It was just as my dreams had shown me, exactly what'd been haunting my sleep.

I could've stayed on that mountain looking down forever. But I knew I was here for a reason - to bring my parents to our true home. Looking down, I saw that the rocks were not steep. In fact, I could easily make the jump down to Haven.

So, I jumped.

As Haven neared, the wind rushing up to meet me was like no other I'd ever felt. It was cool, soft, refreshing... Free of sand...

I was seconds away from the colours, the smells and sights... My parents would weep with joy. I did it! Me! And they didn't think I could! I found Haven! Maybe we'd have a bigger house, a soft bed, a garden! Mother wouldn't make those pills anymore, dad would leave to help grow delicious things for us all to eat...

Perhaps there'd be other children to play with! Would there be books? Toys? Dogs? Oh, I've read about dogs! I want the yellow one like in my book! I'd have a yellow dog with a brown-tipped tail and a bow in my hair... Oh, and a pond, with fish!

And then my brain alerted my to the time I'd spent airborne. Something wasn't right - the descent was supposed to be none more than a hop, really... Why did it feel as though I'd jumped from a cloud in the sky?

I turned my head back toward the place from which I'd jumped, then. It seemed so far away! How far was Haven?

As I craned to look, I expected my vision to be filled with expanses of green... But, with a loud snapping sound I'd never heard before, all I saw was black.

...I've got a little brother now. He's almost a year old. They love him very much, but I'm not jealous, because they love us both the same.

Every night they tell him a story. Every night, with tears in their eyes.

They tell him about a little girl who was once lost in the desert and made it past all these obstacles to find her way back to her family.

Every single night, as the sandstorms beat at the hut.

And every morning, someone in Haven lays a fresh flower next to the stone above my head. They don't know who I am, but they talk to me sometimes.

Everyone is nice in Haven.

Copyrighted Kimmie 2008