SHORT STORY: Romantic Visionary Fiction
Word count: 4158

Violay’s Garden

My name is Viol-ales.  I am named after the tiny purple heartsease flowers called by my people, Violets.  I tend the vast flower forests and include in my plantings the delicate  heartmoons, the strong solflowers and of course the bloodblooms .  I love the rich deep colours of the petals and in my laboratory I distil the essence to make dyes for the robes of royalty. The mystery of the secret world of plants is open to me.

I have studied hard since my youth trying experimental mixes of stone and roots to coax colour to seep from plants into my dyebaths. I command respect for my achievements as they are based on the ancient teachings of my people, the Indons, who are reknowned for their wax batik and weft dyed weaving.  Not many have chosen to honour and extend that wisdom as I have done.

I cannot grow the ancient strain of my name’s sake, the delicate violet, in my garden as they wither under the scorchlight of our sun, but I found a way to grow a precious strain of these shy beauties in my own special garden - a place forever in my heart.  No-one knows this lonely place where I nurture them and try to preserve them for eternity. Not even rain or wind gusts disturb their delicate perfume. This is my secret life’s work and I am content.

I first found myself in my special garden when confusion overtook my senses as I tried to make sense of my love.  I made my first flower then by accident and have been perfecting the art over time since. 

After months of experiments, I finally developed the bloodred dye for decoration on a special cloak. On the day I saw the cloak worn I knew I had met the love I had yearned for all those years.  It was a glorious feast and I was presented to the hosts as an honoured guest.  There are few in this land who could have created the intensity of colour on the cloak and my work was held in high esteem.  My reputation was secured in my profession then, but I was embarrassed to be so publicly revered and my love showed.

I danced with my love that night, around and around in the starlight.  The cloak was swept up around me as we moved together as one, our eyes sparkling, brown to blue, as torchlight flickered and swept across strong muscle and fine brow.  I was lost forever in those eyes and happily splashed in a pool of contentment so vast and deep that I never felt its’ limit.  I loved and was loved and the earth spun beneath me as my breath was caught in sweet kisses as I buried my arms in the soft folds of the cloak gleaming with my dyed patterns of household honour symbols.  I was falling in love but misunderstood when arms reached out to catch and capture me.  I was inexperienced in love and felt its’ threat to overwhelm me as so shocking I eventually fled.

I escaped into the fields desperately trying to hold onto my composure.  My heart was racing, my breath captured tight in my throat. I ran like a trapped beast slashing freedom from loosened bonds.  I ran in terror, away from the feast as far and as fast as I could.  Noone in my whole life had treated me that way, holding me gently, firmly, pressing flesh against mine in a movement of sheer pleasure.  Noone had ever gazed into my eyes with that sort of intent. 

Those eyes held the mystery of a landscape –nay a universe - so alien, so different, so completely unkown that just by acknowledging that it existed proved the utter desolation of my own. 

In the universe of my love’s eyes I saw mountain ranges carved by a different hand, clothed in colourful carpets, weaving around villages and towns in embraces beyond imagination.  People, animals, birds moved within this landscape with an easy grace welcoming and welcomed at the same time.  Languages spoken between them were sweet and gentle to the ear, swift movement alternating with lyrical wisps of sound.  My love was an integral part of that landscape and all was within command.  I saw a place for me beside my love and was filled with terror of this unknown, alien land.  My heart was a jumbled mixture of the excitement of adventure and the sureness of inevitable defeat. 

That’s why I ran.  I didn’t know what else to do.  I was filled with sheer delight and utter despair locked together in mortal combat spinning out of control within my soul.  I ran away blindly in the hope that I would run faster than the two of them and somehow leave them behind in my desperate race to freedom from the new and hence unknown. 

That’s when I found my first violet.  I was lost in the mist that night and finally, exhausted, I found a dry, warm place and cried myself to sleep.  After a time I found myself sitting and started to look about and wonder where I was.  Without thinking, I picked a flower from the grassy bank as I do with flowers and brought it up for closer inspection.  Instantly I flung it away, recoiling in horror.  It was not a flower I wanted to recognise.  It was the flower of love.

Instead of falling to the ground, it remained motionless before me suspended in mid air  so I could see the markings of household honour symbols impressed into the petals. I watched intently as the flower turned slowly before me and I inspected every aspect of its construction. 

It was indeed very beautiful, and I was in awe as the light picked out the lines of the delicate lifeveins running from centre to edge and shaped in space one independent petal against another.  The splash of yellow in the centre flowed seamlessly into the outer violet colouring to disappear over the curled edge.

I had only seen violets in artist sketches and I had stumbled onto a treasure.  For violets are fabled for their addition to handfasting posies as symbolising faithfulness in partnerships.  The white ones were especially sought after as enhancing the blessing for happiness.  But that was in legend as violets no longer graced our secret wild-growing places.  This was indeed an omen for my future.

But as the violet turned to face me once more the shock of recognition was more than I could bear.  My lover’s face was reconstructed in the stamens of the flower’s interior and looked out with dignified grace.  How could that be?    

Who had followed me here? How did they know about my love when I only just discovered it myself? I tried to rise, but found my body heavy and could not.  I rolled over to push myself upright, but slipped and somehow ended up sitting in the same place again.  I was cross and hungry and wanted more than anything to go home.

At that moment, I was reminded again of the conflict which had brought me here and I felt the first pangs of combat begin again.  I could not leave until they had been resolved, but the more I thought about them, the greater their power and as a hit became a scratch and a kick became a gut wrenching blow, Delight and Despair escalated their conflict  into a desperate battle around me once more. 

I forgot about the violet and felt I was at the centre of a spinning storm with millions of little conflicts flying around locked into the vortex raging around me.  ‘You must’ was followed by ‘I can’t’ and was swept up with ‘yes, yes I will’, before plunging into ‘I cannot, I must not’ and rested on ‘I will not – ever’.

On and on it went.  I was pushed first one way and then the other - up, down, yes, no. I will learn the language. No I cannot.  I want to love them. No I do not.  I was kicked by insecurity and whisked away by romantic illusion.  My heart, light as a feather, remembered a touch and turned to stone remembering my place.  My soul danced on unexplored planets in my love’s eyes, to be dashed against the rock of reason in the next instant. My lamplight interrupted the intruder rummaging in my soul with a blaze of clarity before being extinguished by the cloak flung around in haste which plunged my heart into the abyss.  On and on and on it went - up, down, yes no, this way, no that till it seemed that my whole world spun around me in a fury of sparring confusion.

“Is this love?” I screamed in anguish, fearing it would never end.

Instantly the conflict shifted and Delight won the upper hand.  The angry fury was absorbed into the storm but it did not let up.  Delight, as strong and confusing as Despair, transformed itself into long filaments of silver and gold drawn out in fine strands twirling around me in the vortex.  They flashed around so fast it was impossible to discern each tiny strand, but as they built up speed they whipped themselves into a fine mist and lost their angst, took on a gentle hue and became benign like spun sugar.  They reminded me of the colourful banners of a fairground that were tattered into strands by the wind and I remembered the light-flash of love on my friend’s face as she shared news of her summer love with me. 

Then all at once, the vortex of filaments shot out from me in a stream and launched themselves across to the flower and I remembered the image of my love within those petals.  When the two met in mid air, they fused in an explosion of light which filled the air around with a hiss and crackle.  After it dissipated, the beauty of my love’s flower was covered all over with a fine misting of tracery of enormous delicacy.  I watched in awe as the flower took on a violet hue and gradually became transluscent in its’ own sphere of light. It reminded me of the syrup coatings that I dye and apply to the edible decorations of the sacred breads.  I watched the fusing and remembered the crystals which magically form from the syrup as it dries and sparkles on the festiva breads. 

“Is this my love?” I cried and Delight affirmed itself from amongst the petals. 

It was almost too beautiful to behold.  All the shapes were there as before but my love was etched into the central shadowshape of my own true love with such precision that the two were fused irreversibly together. I bowed my head afraid to partake of the awesome sight. It overwhelmed me like an ocean wave but with strength and not power and gushed lovingly around my being caressing my heart and soul with a rush of gentleness I was too ashamed to acknowledge as my own.  I wanted to flee from this beauty as I had fled the night before but my body would not respond to my command.

I lay prone on the grass not knowing how to honour this magic with my presence and vowed always to be true to my love and tend it as lovingly as a garden. I prayed for strength to undertake this awesome task and vowed over and over again until at last, my heart lay at ease and I was free to return.

I planted that violet over there and soon it was joined by many others as my love blossomed.  My love grew in strength, courage and beauty, and with it the garden’s light grew in intensity as the transluscency seemed to glow of its own accord. It was hard sometimes to even pick out individual flowers the eminence was so great.  At one time there were hundreds of such flowers which I planted one by one.

The whole garden was filled with an atmosphere of deceptive clarity.  On the one hand it was clear as a bell and everything was etched in shining edges so that you could discern perception in tangible terms.  But at the same time the air was filled with magical light which suffused the atmosphere with a mist so fine it was beyond perception.  I was happily blinded and the feeling lingered long after my departure to the flower forests of my home.

Somehow, I do not know why, the violets neither grew larger nor withered.  They were never agitated by wind or rain and intruders never disturbed them.  They remained as they were created and I was as honoured as I was intrigued by their existence.  I tried some experiments once to see what would affect them, but found no outcome except one which dissolved the petals in an eerie way.

I brought my love here many times and we often played games by the water and told stories about our friends.  We held each other’s hands and strolled past each flower, one by one.  I didn’t explain that these were of my creation so we revered them as the mysterious gift they were. My love said they are truly wonderful and sought this place with me often as solace from the hectic world outside.  But I often refused, choosing to journey instead into that alien landscape which lay behind brown eyes.

We shared many pleasant days of unencumbered delight there for we never reminded the other of uncomfortable conflicts or raised expectations of unborn futures.  We just took each day as it came and were grateful we had such a wonderful place to find adventure together.

There was a particularly large violet I planted over by that tree. It was created after my knowledge of the situation became so confused I was at a loss to understand what happened and why.  My repertoire of actions did not match my loves and we faced the two way mirror of uncertainty which lay between us.  I smashed that mirror in anger and the biggest violet of all was created.

I remember the one I planted after my love and I visited Parma, a village buried within the alien landscape.  We found some creatures which fascinated but they led our love astray and we were crushed against the rocks of infidelity.  My anguish was captured in a boiling cauldron before I created that one.  It was planted beneath that overhang over there. 

My favourite for the longest time was a delicate little violet which always seemed lopsided and ready to fall over.  It’s little flower face reminded me of the time when my love held me close and promised never to forget me.  But as the cloak swished by at that moment, it smashed a treasure and promises lay forgotten in the resulting loss.

Each time I faced my love with doubt or despair I came here alone so Delight could grow and over time I created a whole garden of my love’s violets.  It was truly lovely.  I was very proud of my creation and tended it lovingly for many years.

Then one day while I was tending this garden, the ties that bound my love to me were gently severed without my permission.  For no particular reason, they just were needed no more and I was told that we would no longer visit the garden together or travel the alien landscape with each other any more.  I stood motionless listening to self interest crackle in the air around us and thought of my hard work in the garden tending the violets.

“For this outcome?” I questioned my creator. “Surely not.”

The initial shock of this news was not taken lightly.  It felt like my world had dissolved in an instant and the entrance to that alien world slammed tight in my face.  My eye caught sight of the flash of household honour symbols I had painstakingly dyed into the hem as the cloak twirled, obscuring my love’s eyes from further question.  I watched in despair as my love and it disappeared into a flurry of night mists on that fateful night.

Tears welled up unbidden as reality dissolved shock in my reaction.  I remembered one cherished event after another of my love and shrieked to the universe to not let those gained learnings be in vain. 

I had journeyed so far from home for love, risked love’s thickets a thousand times, learned my love lessons quickly and dared to dream love-dreams unbidden.  Was this all for nought?  Was I to be abandoned just when I became secure in my love’s grace?  Tears streamed down my face unchecked.  I fled. I packed my bags, locked my laboratory, gave instructions for the flower forest and fled to my garden. Where else was there to go? And brought my anguish squirming in my baggage with me. 

I lasted only one night in the garden before I succumbed to love’s torture called loss.  My heart felt literally that it was torn in two. One part had buried itself in my love’s landscape and was lost forever while the other lay desolate and unwanted in the bleak landscape of my abandoned heart.  I unpacked anguish and together we set to work to smash the violets to pieces.  We hurled rocks at them, crushed them with our feet and flung them against trees, but they remained undamaged no matter how hard we tried.

Then I gathered them all together and lit a bonfire beneath. 

“That will sort them out.” I laughed as I collected sticks and flung them into the flames.

“My love burned bright, but now it’s gone.  What have I left but angry fire?” I said as I spiralled around the flames in the feral fury dance of my ancestors until the flames subsided and I fell down exhausted and slept where I lay on the grass.

In the morning, the cold ashes revealed the violets in pristine clarity completely untouched by the heat of the flames.  Hundreds of little violet faces were looking up at me in wonder from the cold belly of the fireplace.  I recoiled in disgust as I thought of my love who had heartlessly abandoned me, and pledged to drown them in the river.  But just then I caught the image of my golden hair in one of the blossoms and recognised myself duplicated hundreds of times in the heart of each of the little flower petals.

I was overcome with confused compassion to find such beauty trapped helplessly within the untapped bounds of my love’s creation.  Why hadn’t I seen them – me - before?   But there, there I was and there again.

Oh so beautiful, so touchingly, achingly beautiful.  My love was indeed exquisite and I was bathed with a feeling of intense, exquisite joy so refined my senses almost felt it as tantalising pain.

I gathered them up, one by one, lovingly, gently so as not to damage them and formed them into a huge posy in my hand.  I was overwhelmed by their delicate perfume.  It was captured in my hair and I could almost feel the sensation of odour on my skin.  Their colour was my favourite deep purple and my mind sped through my list of countless mixtures which would duplicate the colour in dyes.  I had to shake that feeling off quickly or I would be lost to my professional dedication instead of simply enjoying the moment.

I can’t begin to describe to you the feelings I had at that time.  I felt such pleasure looking at the product of my love’s creation.  I held hundreds of little transluscent violets in my hands all emanating a misty glowing of royal beauty.  These violets I had created with my desire to understand love in its’ state of raw passion and in its’ stage of unformed companionship before commitment structured the relationship into set patterns.  I had shared my anguish, pain, sorrow and joy with these violets and, in my own way, loved each and every one as another milestone reached on my pathway to true love.

I saw each one as independently needing nurture as each one represented an aspect of my love that was unique unmatched against another.  They looked up at me so helplessly that I could not shirk the responsibility to honour and respect them in all their aspects forever.  I wept in confused joy and elated pain and I cried in anguish at my forgetful foolishness of the past and the awesome responsibility I had unleashed for the future. 
For the present held no conflict, I knew unerringly what I must do to restore my love to myself, yet I wept and wept until I could weep no more.

It was only then I remembered my experiments with the violets.  In that same instant, I recognised in horror as the violets had silently become more and more transluscent until their transparency was tinged only at the edges and their essence was of becoming no more. 

“No. No!” I cried. And anguish became rage at my stupidity. 

I watched helpless as my salty tears dissolved the essence of the crystals within their beings and they slowly disappeared into the ether with the joy of my love etched forever on their little faces.  I watched in despair as they became more and more transluscent until their edges faded into nothing but light. 

I held nothing but dried tears and light in my hands and as I watched dumbstruck and in pain, the light grew in intensity and seemed to draw filaments into itself from two directions.  One stream of filaments seemed to draw something from afar, from way outside the garden.  The other was drawn from deep within me. 

I could feel it being gently prised from my heart and pulled into fine strands which wafted between me and my hands until it was drawn up into the sphere of light where the violets had been.

Suddenly a huge flash of light from the sphere splashed forth blinding me and knocking me to the ground so I dropped the sphere and rolled over several times.  When I stood up again the sphere was huge and hanging in space before me.  

It had changed shape and now looked like it had been a double gourd shape but was rapidly resolving itself into a sphere again.  It was emanating a fine mist which obscured the garden behind.  It quickly took on the sphere shape again and was tinged a lavender shade of blue. 

With a shock of recognition, I focussed enough to see someone else standing behind the sphere in the garden obscured by the mist.  I strained but could not make out the shape of a recognised person, friend or foe, but I assumed it was my love returned to me.  The sphere shimmered into a heart shape and absorbed the image of the person behind.  The heart shape trembled as the merging was complete and I then felt the full force of it tugging at me.  I tried uselessly to stand my ground as the concept of merging with my love and the love of all those violets was stronger than the resistance to the other.  

I merged and succumbed to the hum of the mist.  It fully surrounded me, supported me and flowed through me.  Every cell in my body took on the gentle hum which presented me with such peace that at last, my heart was at ease.  Slowly, gently my love dissolved and I became myself once more standing on a grassy bank within this hidden garden.  I cannot describe to you the feeling of bliss which remains.  It lives in my heart forever. 
For it was at that moment that I finally understood that the only love that exists is love of one’s Self.  That love, outwardly expressed, becomes our lover, and our loved ones looking back to us for love.  That love, inwardly expressed, becomes the creative potential of love to become our own true Selves looking outside for love.  We find love neither inwardly nor outwardly.  For love is created in that space in between our loves and joins our hearts together.

I have no other words to convey what I know to you.  I have an experience of love as divine in the breadth and depth of its’ beauty and I will cherish it in my heart forever.

I tend my flower forests with renewed vigour and bless the day I made that first batch of dye to trim the hem with those household symbols.  They have become my own symbols of honour and are the template I use to decorate the sacred festiva bread with crystalised violets which we eat each year at Lughnassadh.  I am loved and therefore content.

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