Spirit Girl

Once, way up on a time beast, with gleaming jowls and a cheap gold Rolex, became a little girl.

With wide gleaming blue eyes and no hint of sadness she wandered through the passages of the time beast, exploring every corner and stopping to wonder at the marvelousness of it all. All who knew her were mesmerised by her, she seemed ageless, serene and held a light that drew others to her.

And they came, for healing, for music, for laughter and silliness for some of them carried such burden that the eyes of this girl were like elixir. And she loved them anyway.

Inside the heart of this spirit-light was a small, soft and comfortable town. The streets and alleys brimmed with organic life; moss and lichen splashed across the bricks of older-time buildings with terraces and corridors decorated with spiderwebs dripping with dew. The town, the forests and sunlit fields smelled like jasmine blossoms for most of the year, and in the cooler months and those strange summer showers brought to life fragrances of earthen eucalypt, gum-nuts and worms, fresh mulch and steaming asphalt.

There were parks woven within haphazard streets of rickety wooden houses which never leaked and were always the right temperature, with a faint balmy spring breeze. Even in the winter days (and i say days because winter only ever lasted that long) the air was cool and refreshing.

The whole town was alive, doorways of homes yawned and called out the varied echoes of living - sound slid down the alleyways and through the pockets of forest gatherings and picnics. Laughter from children, friends, lovers, parties and gatherings. A woman-child laughing at her reflection in the mirror with surprise and delight, another swinging from a lazy hammock lets out a giggle at an idea shared with a novel, another dancing to music, jumping off furniture, spinning and swaying.

They share a secret language, the women-children of this town. It is a voice of idealism, hope, delight, purity, of innocence and wonder. The boarders are strong and no thing can tarnish the wings of this town, this heart, this girl.

Eventually, she comes to know that there are other towns like hers out there, ever hopeful that she will meet one so that the borders may full open and the two towns may become one city of sustainable energy, life and joy. Of course members of the other town must know how to tend the gardens, know when it is time to turn the mulch, know what it means when the ants scurry and gather, how long it takes to bake an apple pie. These are the sacred knowings of this town.

Occasionally a town would breeze by, and permitted access beyond her borders via serenade, by mystic words or no words at all. And the visitors would be welcomed, stay a while. They would stay and work in the gardens, some lay on the grass, some bewitched the girl-women of this town with words, mesmerising and lyrical.

But none of the visitors knew how long to cook an apple pie, and eventually, they were all asked to leave (or packed up and left town of their own accord, never in the night in slippers, but on motorcycles, in fanfares). Not one of them left without leaving a mark, hence not one of them left entirely. New pathways were etched where once there stood an ancient Marri and the women-child were left wondering how the tree was felled without ever any one of them noticing.

They stood, mouths open, agape at the mound of flakes and scraps where once there stood life, and as their tears rolled, the sprouts of fresh life poked out from beneath a branch, a log, a shard. The village was eventually full of these scars, although healed partially, the previous face of the town would never be restored.

The changes of the village through the ages concerned the elder woman-child and a fold in her brow formed. Concerned they would be losing the innocence of the town and its women-children, she vowed that she would see to it that the borders of the town would not fall so easily in the future, she would not be tricked. And she sighed, "Ah, it is all part of the plan of the spirit girl. How is she to experience her life, if not through each of us and the towns we meet. Although our guests can leave an awful mess, they bring tools and language and recipes that would never have had otherwise. No one can truly hurt us for no-one is truly bad."

**

One day, out of the blue sky, came a swooping magpie with giant wings and talons enough to pluck and carry the sleepy village to the edge of existence. The magpie swooped several times and came to land before some of the women-children who had gathered to marvel at the strength and beauty of such a creature.

"I have come to tell you that the Druid is dead. Find your mother-selves and father-selves and other kindred beings and be with them now, for the Druid is dead."

Screeching its piercing call of attack the feathered beast swooped its winged arms with such force that much of the village was swept into a deep canyon beyond the village walls.

In the years past the Elder had come to know this canyon was close by, but beyond the village walls. For some time now they had worked to make the walls higher and stronger, to protect the innocence and light of the beings within. But now, it was upon them to come to know this canyon and know it well.

In the water they were soothed and healed but they would never revisit the surface. They learned to breathe the amber liquid into their clear fresh lungs and survive beneath the water's surface with no sense of anything above. Absolute surrender, laced.

A hush fell on the crowd, as they gripped and lent on each other. Doors of homes tightened to to size that only a child may pass inside, the breeze fell silent and nobody noticed the Jasmine. No body noticed it for a long time, so long in fact that it simply stopped growing, like the love and adoration the women once gave the plants fed their enjoyment of living and without it, they ceased to exist.

The spirit girl, her head spun and her body swayed. The time beast turned at her, drooling a grin-like snarl. Her breath rushed from her chest and her skin ice-white. Inside her, a dam broke and the ocean within her heart poured salty tears into the canyon. The villagers, harbours for peace and hope, were left crushed and bleeding.

As if entranced, the remaining village inhabitants turned silently and marched toward the canyon. Falling in effortlessly as if under hypnosis they stayed there beneath the salty amber-ness without thought or feeling.

The town's flowers fell like leaves and leaves fell into the dust - the earth no longer lush and fertile, but readily becoming stone, rock, dirt. The borders of the town forced themselves higher and higher and more resilient than ever before. The buildings stayed, but only just, for the lichen and moss that rested between their bricks and awnings had dissolved and the buildings swayed in the rancid heat of day and froze solid in the desert winter-nights.


Not a soul to be seen for three months.

Eventually, a weary woman with the vague memories of freedom and a heart of a warrior urged herself from the Amber slumber to man the border. She had heard stories of the Spirit-girl's demise into madness and her loyalty to the Spirit-girl finding breath again made her begin and end her climb out of the canyon.

There was no way that anything was ever going to get past those gates again. No one was to be trusted, unless given a special pass and only on the condition that they would help to repair the damaged caused by the news of the Druid's death.


Hope and innocence, joy and laughter, faith and trust were abandoned, for these things did not exist if the Master Druid did not make them so.

To be continued...