text: Once upon a time, this was a beautiful Garden. Now, I sit below the broken rib-cage of a tree. I see a skeleton of an arm dangling over my head. Once upon a time, this was a branch. Hope falters in its gaunt, dying fingers like the flickering glow of fading stars in the shroud of night’s darkness. Once upon a time, those were its twigs. Foolish little fingers they are, still waiting for that touch, the touch of the Hand of Life. Years have passed, those silly twigs should have given up already, like the rest of the Garden, like me. They should have forgotten what its touch felt like, those warm, gentle fingers, that had promised Life and had left my Garden forever, left me forever. They should have gotten used to the whiplash of the merciless winds by now, to their cold, lifeless touch, that had stripped them bare of all their leaves, whose corpses lay beneath my feet. Yet, somewhere a tiny ray of Hope glimmers. It will die soon. I hear creaking noises behind. I turn back and squint in the dark, the silhouette of a tiny figure comes walking towards me. A kid, it seems. “What are you doing here, kid?”, I ask, as the child slowly walks closer. The child looks at me, with a start. Maybe, he hadn’t noticed me in the dark. “I was chasing a butterfly. I came here in your Garden, Sir, looking for it. Have you seen it?”, the child asks me. His voice sounds vaguely familiar. “No butterfly comes here kid. I haven’t seen one for years.”, I say. “But why?”, the child looks at me questioningly. “Look around, kid. My Garden is dying. You came looking in the wrong place. Go home, kid.”, I say with a sigh. He looks around. I see his eyes growing wider. “But what happened to you, O Tree?”, he asks the huge Oak Tree over me. “Trees don’t speak. Not anymore.”, I say. “They do speak to me.”, he protests. “Maybe, you can’t hear them.” Silly boy. Trees don’t speak to grown-ups; I think to myself. Or maybe, we don’t speak to them anymore. I smirk as the boy’s question is met with silence. Suddenly, something shifts within me. No, it’s under the ground, right below where I am standing. I feel the ground tremble ever so slightly. Something moved silently underneath my feet. I watch in awe as the gigantic Oak tree turns slowly towards the boy, its once majestic branches drooping over his tiny head in a bow. The tree begins speaking with a low grunt. “Dear boy, many years ago, I was a strong, magnificent tree. My powerful branches and elegant leaves were home to a hundred birds. They were the Life to a thousand Springs. Spring danced with the bees and butterflies in the cracks of my branches. Monsoon sang a million notes with my rustling leaves and chirping birds in the golden drizzle of the dawn. Summer would envy my gorgeous shades and Winter would tickle me back to sleep with its gentle cascade of snow. I was known far and wide as the Tree of Love.”, the Tree pauses for a while and then begins with a sigh. “But one day, a monster crept into the heart of our beloved Garden. He came stealthily and silently and took shelter in my shades. He was known by many names. Some called him Ego while some called him Pride. He grew stronger every day, feeding on the darkness of Fear, Loneliness and Pain. Then a day came, when he grew more powerful than - “. I hear a sob. The little boy turns behind. I see a rose weeping. A little away from us was a rose bush. All the roses were black. “Why do you cry, dear Rose?”, the boy asks. “My little one, these tears cannot wash away my pain. Once upon a time, I was a red rose, blooming and beautiful, and so were my friends. We were called the Flowers of Joy. We used to bring a smile on every face that saw us. Our fragrance touched every heart and filled it with Hope. But that beast of Despair snatched our smell from us. That monster, who called himself Greed, stole our colour. Envy, the evil beast, robbed us of our Beauty and Joy.” “I was once a Lake.”, the swamp a little distance away spoke. “My waters shimmered in the brilliant sunshine and glowed with all the colours of the dawn and the dusk. But Time, the ruthless Giant, stole away my Youth and kept it caged in its darkest maze, called the Past, from where one can never return. Time wanted all my Youth for itself.” The Oak Tree says, “This Giant sucked the sunshine out of our Garden and left it barren and dying. We use to love the Monster, care for him. We nurtured him with all that we had. We tried to heal its Darkness, its Fear, its Anger with our Love. But he couldn’t let us in. He fought us and ran away from our Light, when all he should’ve fought was his own Darkness. So, he snatched away from us, all our Love and Beauty and Happiness, in the hope of healing himself, for he never found these within him. But little did he know, that he was going to lose forever, what he had never even looked for. That was the curse on the Giant, for he was never happy again. And our beloved Garden of Mind grew barren and empty, never to be blessed with new Life again. Our beautiful Garden of Hope lost its sunshine forever. Our Garden of Life withered.” “But where is the Monster now? Can he hear us? Will he eat us alive?”, the child asks with unspoken fear in his eyes. “He is right here, in my Garden.”, I say. The child looks questioningly at me, as though my answer is a little unfinished. After a long pause, I say, “Maybe, I am the Monster.” I look into his eyes in the dark. “Are you not scared of me kid?”, I ask. We stare at each other in silence. Time seems to have frozen. After an eternity, it feels, the child slowly walks closer and extends a tiny arm towards me. His little fingers touch me softly, somewhere close to my chest, where a tiny ray of Hope is still throbbing, where a tiny bit of me is still alive. Something strange happens next. I see Sunshine for the first time in years. I look at the child in front of me. He looks around, awestruck. His eyes are brighter than the Sunshine. He gapes in amazement as he looks at the Oak Tree and the Rose Bush and the Lake. But all I see is the child in front of me, for now I know who he is. “How did the Garden grow young and beautiful again?”, the child asks in wonder. I smile and take one long look at my Garden of Innocence, before looking into the bright eyes of my Childhood. Then I whisper, “It’s all because of you.” -----------------------