The day was far advanced already but night was not upon us yet… as we stepped out, we became overwhelmed by a heat wave for a few seconds, then a fresh breeze flew gently to our nostrils: breathe. At first, I did not know where we would go. As usual, I let my feet lead the way because for some reasons when I am out, they know better what my heart wants. We headed down the neighbourhood and walked silently towards the centre… passing the brewery, I noticed the birds, or rather their joy of life… it is a very contagious thing: joy. From that moment on, I paid attention to everything and my heart started lightening up. I could not then put my finger on what was really happening inside of me, all I can say is that it made me feel really good. The lighter my heart, the wider my smile and the higher was my head as I walked.
My feet made us cross the road and led us to a great walking path on the east side of town. I then remembered that we had talked about this place many times. In the town’s history, it was said that within the paths and forest lay the ghost town. I became impatient to discover it and my enthusiasm showed no limit.
After a while, boring if you ask me, we arrived to a crossroad and decided to follow the path that looked the wildest even though it was a marked one. As we stepped on it, the trees formed an archway from one side to the other. It looked very strange because very uneven and disorganized. It was not of man doing, that much we could see… I looked at the forest and it felt like buildings were appearing from thin air… one second I could see them the other they were nowhere to be seen… I thought that my imagination was playing tricks on me, but the phenomenon happened repeatedly until I started talking about it. The magic was still there though…
We reached some kind of entrance… a remnant of man’s hand… it looked like the entrance of a fortress and from that point on my imagination found no rest… I would talk of the past, say that the town’s people used to live behind the walls of the fortress where wise ones guided them towards their utmost potential. They were exploiting silver in the now abandoned mines… the silver would then be used to redistribute the natural energy to the people who worked so hard for it… Silver was the key and glass was not yet discovered… Eventually, greed grew stronger in a few men’s heart and the peace was broken. Before the wise ones completely disappeared, silver was transformed into iron… and for years to come, people came to town to work in the mines. The old ways were forgotten within a century… Today, the wise ones are haunting the forest in hope of finding someone willing to bring back what was once a beautiful and lively town… Hence the ghost town.
Of course this is only a child’s heart talking… The town has a very interesting story that is not the one I invented, yet I intend to discover it, little by little and maybe the ghost town will appear to me when I have explored enough. The walk we had that day was the first of many others to come.
© Claire Perez E.
[Paintings of Life]
