Fragments From Floyd

Once upon a time, after the boy had grown up, moved away and learned what science said the world was really like; after he had a family and a house--had lived in many houses, really, in many different places--he began a new job in an empty office. They told him about the warehouse where cast-off things were stored; he should go there to see if there was a desk or chair or goose-neck lamp he could use.

In a far, dark corner of the dingy old warehouse, covered in dust and obscured by filing cabinets and tall bookcases, was a picture on the dull water-stained wall. It was unlike any other picture the man had ever seen. In it were trees and sky and water--ordinary things, to be sure--but the man swore that he could see himself in the picture. Not really see himself as much in it as from it. He could enter the picture and look all around him--up at the sky, down into the water, at the plants in the forest that he knew by name. He remembered as a boy, in the land of his imagination, he knew of a place just like this one. The creek was full of fish. Under every log, a brightly colored salamander lived. Brilliant birds sang in the trees. And it was always different, each time he went there. The light shimmered in the leaves overhead--first leaves of spring, then late summer. At one moment it was sunny and fair, the next cloudy, threatening, smelling of rain.

And he knew he must have this imaginary place, inside its frame, above his desk in his new office.
It remained there on his wall for him to see, every day--good days and bad: days he was happy to be where he was and days he longed to find his place, out and far away from the jangled congestion and unpleasantness of noise and clutter; away from cities, hiways and shopping malls. He hoped someday to find this place where he spent so much time each day in imagination--on the banks of the silver creek under golden trees with the ever-changing sky overhead.

In time, he moved again. "One last time" he told his wife. And they moved into a small cabin in a beautiful country place. But it was not yet home to him. While he enjoyed his walks along the peaceful lane down to the edge of the mountain where he could see forever, there was not a trace of his beautiful creek with the silver sky that he knew from the picture. It now hung on the wall of their modest cabin. They had almost given up hope of finding the home they longed for. And just when they gave up struggling to find it, it found them.

At first glance, it was not a place the man even wanted to stop and inspect. The old house looked as if it might fall in from neglect. The land had been beautiful at one time, but the most uncaring of loggers had left behind little of that beauty. "No, No!" insisted the wife. "This is the place". She brought the man back many times over the next few days to see what it was there that called to her. One day they walked on the land through briars and tangles along a grassy road that had seen few if any travelers in many years. It followed the slender valley further and further back where the valley grew narrow. At last, they rounded a bend where the forest had grown tall and escaped the logger's axe. The trees arched over the creek. The creek full of bright fish glistened as if it were made of polished aluminum. Shadows dappled the dark earth under the grand old trees. And all at once, he knew.

"This is the place in the picture. This is the forest and creek I have dreamed of since I was a small boy. This is the country place I longed for all these years while the picture hung on my office wall, both taunting me and giving me hope that there was indeed just such a place." They moved to the place and they live there to this day. The picture is there, too, across from the hearth, above the old piano where its travels have come to a pleasant ending.

The man wondered the day he first saw the creek of his dreams--wonders still--had he not held this image in his mind and in his heart so tightly and with such hope all these years, would such a place as this have become real at all? Would this peaceful valley along the silver creeks even have existed for him to find? Did this place come into being by the power of imagination? This is a thing that he almost believes, and something that he will never know for sure.

"Imaginary Places" is the biweekly topic at Ecotone this time around. This is a true story where imagination finds reality. The picture above hangs over our piano.