Short Stories!

Garden

(This one might not be that good. I don't think it's as good as Galaxy, but it does include the woman with the metal leg... thought a little bit of story would make this useless drabble a little more interesting...)

Garden

Her long hair cascades down her back in waves, like a river through the forest green of her shirt. Her blue eyes shine as bright as the sun as she tends to the miraculous display of life and greenery around her. Her garden was one of the finest that anybody she had ever known had lay eyes on. Some, who had only heard stories about it, called it Eden. Eden, the garden of peace, tranquility, and life. Eden, where all things, plant or not, could thrive and be merry. Where trees grew taller than the gloomy buildings around it, creating one heaven in a city of hell. Where the sun always seemed to shine, and where the few good people left in this city, corrupted by greed, could flourish. The girl had taken on the supposed name of her beloved paradise, as many great caretakers of this paradise had before. Her family line had taken care of "Eden" or better known to the family as "Lignum". Paradise was only known as Lignum to her family and a few others, the others who decided that being a caretaker was not in their blood. Though Eden and her family were beginning to worry. Eden had not yet found a young soul to take up and rise with the mantle of caretaker. Though there was a young woman, not any older or younger than Eden, that was returning more and more frequently to Lignum. Short hair, bright eyes, always enjoying the sight of a clear sky. Eden talked to her frequently and was beginning to like her more and more. When she had first come to Lignum, she was a secluded woman, always up high in the trees, higher than anybody else could climb. Except for Eden of course. Eden could climb up the night sky that the other loved so dearly to find her. Of course, Eden doesn't know what this means. Eden was born in Lignum and has never wanted to leave. Lignum was a safe place, a haven. She knew of the unprincipled desire for all things material that festered in the outside world and didn't understand how something as wonderful and beautiful as the girl with stars in her dark eyes and streaking comets in her bobbed hair could come from the same world. For now, Eden has noticed the face of the nameless woman more than most would. If you were to pass her on the street, you would feel nothing. She looks nothing more than an ordinary worker. But when Eden talks to her, she watches every move. Eden is captivated by the way her eyes sparkle and light up when she asks about a topic that interests her particularly. She tracks every movement of her lips as they shoot out strings of information completely useless to almost anybody at inhuman rates. Eden has only known love all her life. Eden has never experienced hate. We wish we could have had it like Eden, but that is simply not how the world works... the world works more like how the woman with short, bobbed hair sees it. She has experienced love and hate, and everything in between. She is experiencing it right now. She is experiencing what will be the longest friendship she will ever possess. This simple occurrence might change the world. The worlds belonging to each woman certainly will change, as the woman with short, bobbed hair will have a certain security to her life that she never possessed before, and Eden will finally experience more of the world that she shut out long ago. As the duo climb down out of the tall trees, the trees around them that change their perspective of nature. Trees that make them admire the tenacity of everything natural surviving up till now. Trees with diameters that seem like miles and heights beyond the imagination of even the most creative child couldn't begin to dream of, they come across a wild idea. An idea that even the most insane and hysterical of people in the far reaches of the city painted with blue and pink fluorescent lights that Eden had only faintly seen through the thick vines and brambles, but that the woman with short, bobbed hair had lived with her whole life, wouldn't ponder on their worst days. They'd explore the city. Explore even though they may never find their way back to Eden's paradise, even though the woman's apartment that was so sickeningly close to her work was lost as another speck of fluorescence in the otherwise dark city. They could make it on their own! Or at least, they could try... 

(A weird one...) 12/18/2017