Song in the Woods

"Tomorrow I will marry, and nothing will ever be the same" I said to the trees and meadow, and mildly disapointed when none of them answered. For twenty years now I dreamt of magic,of the fantastic and was condemned for a life of ordinary

My name is Sabrina, and I am to be tomorrow´s bride. The village is in uproar, everyone was invited to celebrate. It will be the grandest event in years, and how could it be any different? The groom is Samir, the Miller, the richest men in Applewood.

"And how different we are... like the sun and the moon!" poetics, but true. I picture a fair maiden with curly golden locks, lithe in her pure white dress besides the thinned old man, and fight back my emotions. For a year I resisted his advances, enjoying his courtship. He brough me flowers and gifts, and sought me at each of our festivals. Others would make similar advances, but it was always him the most charming, the most insistant. Perhaps my friends would favor a younger, more handsome man, but I still held dear the stories of old, of kindness, and I believed in inner beauty. I eventually agreed to marry him. He was joyous, and so was father; in fact everyone was so happy. I suppressed the little sadness I felt, and smiled with everyone else.

So today I ran, to enjoy my last day as a child. I ran, climbed trees, hid from imaginary monsters, sang to the trees, everything I used to do. My body feels sore, but my spirit gives me strenght. I now stand on the Rock, where we make a big jump towards the pond below. It has never been dangerous, just thrilling.

"I leave the old me here... and when I emerge, I shall be a new woman, ready to live the rest of my life. Whatever it is" I close my eyes, and wait until the word quietens. I unlance my dress, and let it fall to the ground. I can feel the dying rays of sunlight, dusk is soon aproaching. It is now or never, I jump.

"It was a perfect dive", I think underwater. My heart is beating fast, I dont want to emerge. And then, i see it. At first it looked just like a piece of wood, but I was sure it would be something else. I swam closer, and I saw it was a flute! But it was being held by a skeleton grip. Indecision costed me precious seconds of air.