Willow trees

The Willow trees hung softly in the breeze, swaying to the tune of life without a vanish completely at times to reveal an almost playing field looking area of grass, and around the entire environment were four walls of foreboding dark hedges made of pine trees which reached up at a great height.

Inside this microcosm lived three small groups of people each occupying their own corner of the lake and living generally in harmony, never really making contact with each other unless necessary.

Slowly over time however as the lake shifted it's location, disappeared and reformed always guided by the watchful eyes of the willow trees, the people started to interact more regularly as they grew in size and inevitably grew closer together.


They enjoyed sports, socialising and organising feasts together as they celebrated the coming of seasons which almost seemed impossible given the small size of their world, yet in this dream like society you knew there were things hidden, secrets untold.

After the years one summer was severely dry and hot making the lake vanish, food scarce and life increasingly more difficult and turbulent in the microcosm as  groups began to slowly isolate themselves and divide.

A hand came from the sky, it dropped a football into the world and some luxuries the world had not seen before in their lives, and the three groups were once again united for a short time as they enjoyed the new foods and drink in the summers heat as they played sports on the playing fields that had now formed on the dry lake bed. Somehow still grassy and lush despite the lack of water.

Night time came and people fell asleep happy, it was a day of making friends across groups and even falling in love.

The next morning one group had disappeared, the middle one that sheltered amongst the largest number of the smaller willow trees, and so was the remaining supplies given so generously by the hand above.
Things inevitably became tense again between the two remaining groups, and as a young man began to cross the dried lake - which now resembled a dry lake as opposed to the playing fields- to see his new found love who came to join him just outside her groups settlement, tempers broke.

They embraced in a hold that was nothing but innocent love and affection, something magical in the heart of chaos, yet it only seemed fitting that an older man from the young girls group would come and meet them in a raging fury and demanded they never speak.

The two youths were baffled and scared, but their love held them there in fear of what may happen to one another if they went their separate ways.

It didn't take long however for the hand above to re-appear and supply the angry man with the tools necessary to split them apart, it revealed itself with an all too smug aura of self indulgence and importance in this world yet it supplied nothing but an invisible object.

A blow came to the young mans head and he felt nothing but pain and heard nothing but the screams of his love shouting "no".

It was over very quickly and everything went black. When the young man woke up he looked around and noticed the group had gone, and only his remained across the slowly growing lake. Things returned to normal and food and water became abundant once more. The group lived in constant harmony with the microcosm they dwelled in surrounded by the trees.

Despite the new era of tranquillity and abundance, no matter how hard the young man and his group tried, they could never remove all their memories, they now knew a different world was out there, a more exciting world. The only memories they can remove is how violent the other world can be, it didn't matter they had their love and they had been promised the world for themselves.