I love my underground cottage but I always wanted one in the trees. A house full of light and life. One I could share with the forest creatures around me and live up in the canopy. Where I could look out at the world with love and wonder. I could greet the sunrises and dance in the sunsets. The breezes would soothe me to sleep every night. The world would be full of magic and I would be honored to dwell within. But the world we live in is not yet ready for such thing. Too many people want to destroy such forest houses. Calling the forest life an abomination. Force me into their narrow mold of city life. Still this underground home is closer to the life of a forest elf I always longed for. The organic sculpted walls. Little shelves full of my treasures. A bathtub I could swim in. A closet full of flowing fluttery clothing that somehow is more practical than the mass produced crap found on the surface above. But it is not all about the material goods but also the people who live here and love me for who I am. Breathing deeply I know my freshly found inner peace could not last I began the day with my mantra.
Believe you are one!
Invite magic into your life.
Create your own enchanting wings.
Always use your powers for good.
Design your own reality, full of happiness, peace and love.
Celebrate every day with laughter, songs and play.
Paint sunrises on rocks and leave them on empty doorsteps.
Picnic with a grasshopper and unravel the mysteries of the universe.
Plant your favorite cookie crumbs for the ants.
Grow a wish garden and bring your dreams to life one by one.
Blow kisses to gray clouds and paint your toenails with raindrops.
Build elegant butterfly houses and rent them out for free.
Dance daily.
Find something beautiful in everyone you meet and remind them of it.
Hug trees until you can feel a heart beating with yours.
Share your secrets with your feathered and furry friends.
Follow rainbows with kindred spirits and discover the treasures along the way.
Fill empty spaces with flowers.
Whisper your worries to dragonflies and let them be carried far, far away.
Write poems about friendship, faith and forgiveness and leave them on park benches.
Nap in the grass and let ladybugs dance in your hair.
Stretch time and space, and travel to new lands.
Soak your soul in sunsets – twilight is a fairy’s finest hour.
Listen to the quiet.
Explore the wonder of you.
Attend cricket symphonies by moonlight.
Make wishes for other people on shooting stars.
Let your wings carry you where no one else has been.
Light the way for others to follow.
Spread the message: Everything is Possible.
Remember that when you believe in yourself, you inspire others to do the same.
Heading to the large dining hall I am taken off guard by the confusion of sounds and smells of everyone starting their day. The buffet tables, smartly lined up at one side are piled high with foods of every sort. Fresh fruits, vegetables, breads, and soups I help myself to half a grapefruit, some vegetable broth soup, and a quart of coffee. My usual breakfast for here. Then hesitating as I do not wish for company unlike most days, so I walk to a quieter table in a far corner wishing to be alone with my thoughts. There is a warm fire and soft seats. Many invite me over but I politely decline. Perhaps I have been gone too long this time and should not have stayed away. There are many new faces. We must have expanded in the last couple years. I wonder what changes were made to the layout. If we are still set up to be completely sustainable if the outside world crashes to its inevitable fiery end. That is one of our goals after all. To build a better society that will inherit the earth after the fools outside fall. The entire place can withstand a nuclear attack and we would be able to live out happy healthy lives here. What may look like hand hewn rocks and dirt is actually a series of concrete domes reinforced with rebar all buried ten feet down. I am sitting at a table twenty feet under the earth. There are lower levels as well many full of stored goods and all the technology and machines we would ever need to make anything we want. All carried in from miles away all of this built without anyone from the outside world having any sort of hint of the work being done. The children grow up as part of a community and we even have teachers and doctors here. We aren’t some religious nuts or dirty hippies. We are a group of like minded people who wish to survive the coming apocalypse that everyone can sense is coming. There has been an ever increasing number of public shootings, people losing their minds and taking out others, and almost everyone is doing some sort of prepping within their own homes. Everyone can tell at some level that something big is going to happen and we are fully set up here to weather the storm.
The leader of our community sits down with me and while finishing my breakfast I tell her my tale. After which I give her the vile I still have in my pocket and ask her to get the biotech people on figuring out what, if anything, can be learned from the vial. She gives a few commands into her watch and we go into lockdown. Everyone who was on the surface goes underground and all portals to the surface are sealed. No one will be able to enter or leave till our leader decides it is safe. The surface stop action cameras will be monitored constantly and she will help to get to the bottom of this whole mess. But she doesn’t say what we both know. That the trip to russia was why my husband was killed. That someone wants this vial and is willing to kill to get it. That if anyone knows about our little colony they don’t want us to have radiation eating bacteria. Otherwise nothing would stop us from launching a nuclear weapon and destroying the rest of civilization as we know it and taking the earth as our own. Nothing that is except for our lack of a nuclear weapon. Some people really have too much of an imagination about little societies like mine. That somehow we always accomplish the impossible. I could make a weapon but I wouldn’t want to. All I would need is a few thousand smoke detectors and to remove their nuclear material to make a giant bomb. It wouldn’t be hard I just wouldn’t do it. There is still so much light and life around the world that I would hate to destroy. So much biodiversity that I could not bring myself to lose. We would even lose the towering trees above this place. Who would do such a thing?
I wander the corridors, halls, and meeting places. For what? I know not. Perhaps I look for an absolution. An answer to make sense of all the violence I encountered while away. Something that will make up for the loss of my love. Or explain why there are so many fowl people in the world. I wish only for a life of light and love, why must I encounter so much evil and hatred in my search for happiness? Why do so many seek to destroy me and all that I stand for? There are so many green growing things here that I pick up a hip basket and knife and start in on the lemon harvest. There is always so much to do with the plants. So much to harvest. So much food to process and store for later. When something needs done a notice is posted by the head gardener and you can join the workforce till tired and actually accomplish something. There is nothing quite as fulfilling as a job well done. Good work is always worth doing and helps me to collect my thoughts.
The chimes sound. Could it really be lunch time already? Did I really pick the entire lemon grove clean? The evidence of my work is all around me. So many bins of lemons full. I load them onto the carts pressing the button for collection and wandering off for lunch.
The scent of lunch is strong and savery. I wish to taste everything that has been prepared. So many delicious treats all grown organically on site. All the hard work makes the food taste so much better. Grabbing a steaming bowl full of my favorite broth soup, some fruit, and a quart of lemonade I wonder where to sit. I should speak with my friends. I should catch up on current events and the most recent gossip. But I just can’t bring myself to do so. My losses are too great, the wounds too fresh, and the grief too great to just jump back in to such things so soon. So I choose the peace of the fireside table at the far end of the room. I know I won’t be able to choose this for too much longer but I only wish to be alone with my thoughts. I hope no one followed me here to this sanctuary under ground. I hope we are all still hidden from the outside world. I wish us all to never be discovered as that would lead to disaster. Many watch me from across the room. I try not to notice but it weighs on me that I am ignoring my friends and adoptive family. I could care less if I offended my biological family as they are abusive fools, schizophrenics, alcoholics, and assholes. But these people are ones I love and who love me in return and they don’t make me walk through fire just to prove it. In time I will tell them my story and they will be patient till then.
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