The Glen
At the very back corner of a farm there runs a creek and, slumped over the creek is a tree that two little girls once called a bridge. Across that bridge is a little glen with a small bent tree that became their hideaway. And just below that tree lay a cove before the creek bed, the edge of land before the cove a sharp drop that the two little girls liked to swing their feet over, dreaming up all sorts of lovely impossibilities. Ten years on, the slumped tree still lay lazily over the trickling creek and the small bent tree still defied logic in the way it defiantly stood. But the two little girls did not visit anymore. Instead, a young woman sits on a log watching that stubborn tree and ponders. She thinks of grass and ropes and tarp. But mainly she sits and wonders. Of magic and dreams. But most of all she thinks about those two little girls and where they are today.
Closing her eyes, she can hear them laughing about her. And so, squeezing her eyes shut so tightly colour burst at the backs of her eyelids, she pictures the two little girls and recalls the day after their birthday as they walked about the farm with their friends.
The walk was merely a means of entertainment as they waited for cars to bounce along the uneven driveway. And so, having found nothing to do in the house, they slowly meandered across the field and over the bridge as they waited for their friends to be picked up. Exhaustion from a late night ran deep in the little group. However, it appeared to evaporate as they all eagerly crossed into the glen, a sense of calling their adventure and the cove a way to it.
Minutes had turned to hours as the group dreamt up stories of witches and mermaids, the creek holding all sorts of wonderful spells and enchantments.
The young woman opened her eyes and the little group disappeared instantly as she took in her surroundings. A tree had brutally smashed the small cove, the walls caved in so that no one could sit comfortably before the creek again. Perhaps that was a good thing, she tried to justify to herself. There was no reason to sit on muddy ridges just to touch the dirty water. But it still hurt as she thought of the effort the two little girls had put in to carve the walls of the cove so that it had created a small cave (which had only been large enough to create a small sun shelter – and a mediocre one at that). Still, seeing all that hard work in large chunks upon the ground made her sad, and she left the little glen, her legs long enough to jump over the creek – unlike the two little girls who had had to use the bridge. She didn’t go near the bridge again that day. That hurt to see too. It didn’t stop her from returning the next day though, her feet clad in gumboots.
She wears old farm clothes stained from work out and about, and, this time, she brings a notebook, pen and her phone. Sullen music leaks from the phone in her left flannel pocket.
Today, she feels nostalgic and moody. Perhaps it is the red flannel she wears – once belonging to those two little girls’ father. It’s soft to the touch and despite the stains and loose buttons, she fears it catching dirt. Like a young child to a cold in winter it was inevitable in such an environment, but still, she is cautious as she perches on the edge of the log, taking great pains to knot the loose fabric below her sternum.
She sits in the same spot as the previous day, but instead of listening to the kookaburra lying about oncoming rain, she listens to the mournful tune of a man detailing his losses. She’s got a playlist of these songs, most days they tumble about in her head but, it seemed right to bring them with her today. She tucks that sorrowful song into her pocket, right against her heart and closes her eyes, each down beat of the song turning into footsteps until she can again picture those two little girls before her.
It’s just the two of them today and they are alone in the little glen. The young woman is of little consequence – what use are adults in a world of magic and wonder? Today they are building. This glen, they have decided, is to be their own hideaway from a world governed by rules of do’s and don’ts. Down the winding hill and over the bridge they have brought an old tarp and some ragged rope. They make quick work of tying the tarp about the slumped tree, turning it into a shelter from the harsh reality of life. Beneath that tarp and under that tree they are whoever they want to be.
The young woman opens her eyes and stares again at that tree. It’s gazed upon a thousand storms and has stood stoically against a billion gusts of wind. But, though that tree doesn’t look any different from when those two little girls had stood before it, the tarp and rope is little more than tatters falling like ribbons from the two branches. The slight breeze around the young woman coaxes a thread of rope into the air. Feeling again disheartened and sad, the young woman treks back to the car parked just across the creek bed. Unlike those two little girls, she drives a battered ute down the paddocks to the glen. She’s tall enough to see above the steering wheel. But even that excitement has died to be little more than a chore. Cars cost money to run, something she is in constant worry about. She doesn’t fret about some decrepit tarp or old rope falling to bits in the weather, she worries about adult things. But on the drive up she does think about those two little girls. Specifically, how they would react to their work a mere memory taken up in storytelling by the wind.
The young woman returns a third time, and again she has music at her heart and a notebook in the crook of her elbow. The notebook is not opened – as like last time – and all she does is sit upon the log (her seat to be sure), close her eyes and dream of the two little girls. But something is off – perhaps it is the music? Today, she is accompanied by a female screaming angrily into a microphone and all she can picture is the face of the smaller of the two girls. Each word of the song brings the girl into focus. Today it seems, the little girl has entered the glen alone.
A pocket knife is clutched in her hand and her actions are practised and attentive. She’s here for a bow. The process is lengthy – a procedure that would have been made quicker with a saw as opposed to the small swiss army knife she holds – but the little girl is stubborn and alternates between sitting and standing as she severs the springy gum from the ground. Though still a small sapling, the tree towers over the little girl. When she finishes, she simply pockets the knife and takes the tree with her over the bridge, a great balancing act ensuing as she crosses.
Were the young woman to open her eyes now, she would see the stump of that little tree has become little more than a tripping hazard in the open glen. She turns before she opens her eyes and walks back to the ute without a second glance towards the stump. The bow the little girl made still sits in the house upon the hill, it is taller than the young woman and remains taut as before. Expressionless, the young woman disappears across the bridge only to reappear a couple of weeks later.
Again, she carries a notebook, but today, she is devoid of any music. She has no time to sit on her log and so she stands beside the rusty ute looking over the creek to the glen. From here, she can see the base of the tree that smashed the cove, its great roots pointing at the ute in anger. Those little girls were no longer around to save the glen from the Earth’s wrath. Remorse clogged the young woman’s throat, forcing her to sit beside the ute in silence as she beheld the destruction before her.
Leaning against the car, she closes her eyes and feels the presence of those two little girls around her. Only this time, they are much older, as are their friends. And this time, they have driven to the glen.
It’s been many years since the two girls have visited the glen. The tarp has begun to rip and the creek has seen a few floods wear at the bed. The girls have changed too. They both drive now – though only about the farm – and are in awe of the simplicity and joy an old ute could bring. It’s another party for the two and the group are in need of entertainment again.
The young woman pictures herself standing in the tray of the ute behind her, hands clenching the bar of the roof as air rips her hair behind her head. Rousing herself awake, the young woman gets back into the ute and slowly drives up to the house. She can’t shake the feeling of the two girls sitting in the cab with her, urging her to go faster, faster, faster! Echoes of exhilaration to be heard in the whine of the engine as it chugged up the hill.
The young woman takes her time before she returns once more. As always, she carries that notebook – still unwritten in. It’s cold today and the wind snaps her flannel about her face. She has no idea why she has returned, she’s unsure if she will even see the little girl’s again this time. She has lost her way. She does not return with a purpose, but to find one.
Closing her eyes she tries to find the little girls again, hoping that they will give her some guidance. She plays her music for the glen, but still, they do not show. She’s stuck and alone. Despair brings her to the ground. As she falls to her knees the crunch of dead leaves softens the blow.
The sound of each brittle leaf crumbling snaps her self-control, and she finds herself staring at the massacred tree before her. Unable to numb herself anymore, she feels a tear slip down her cheek as she realises that she will never truly return to her happy childhood. And so, the young woman sobs into the cradle of her hands for the past she had both lost and found herself stuck in.
No more a little girl, she misses the company of her sister as they journey through their lives. She weeps at the destruction of their past, but she also weeps for herself. No longer are they two little girls in a small glen. One has already decided to grow up too quickly, no semblance of remorse evident each time she visits. And the other… Well, she was stuck. Only half of a soul, missing the other piece.
She isn’t ready to give up their magic, at least not yet. So, she finally opens that notebook and writes, the occasional tear warping the words to something not quite readable. But that doesn’t really matter to the woman, as to anyone other than those two little girls, the page would be unintelligible babble.
But to those two, and only those two, it contains the heart of a place they used to run to.