They Sing Me Along

I lie upon the moss of an old-growth forest, tired from picking berries. Moist, curling fingers of earth summon a wandering mist to blanket me. I slide, sweetly, into dream. Sprites appear, beating acorn caps; fern fairies pluck fiddleheads; something plays a flute. All around, foliage churns with the emergence of myriad fae, their voices piercing the twilight with song. Gold streaks blink and flare—a display of fireflies whirling in the purple air. Meanwhile, tiny hands tug at my locks, toss and juggle berries from my basket. A dragonfly zips through the trees, splitting apart the music. When the song leaps back together, I join in….

That was a hundred years ago, in a childhood dream. Yet I’ve carried that song deep within me ever since. Always it has knocked away the sadness and pain—like devils whacked by a frying pan! And though unseen, the wee ones came back to me the day My Love died. For weeks they wept alongside me in that rain-swept space left behind, sang to me when I could no longer bear the solitude.

Peering out the nursing home window, I sigh. I’ve had a good life—small, but a gem just the same. I blink, slow and long. At length the walls dissolve, the bed starts to sink. I fall asleep, reenter the dream… And again lie upon that soft bed of moss. A dryad smiles down from her towering tree, waving in emerald streaks of air. Foliage rustles with the wee ones’ return—look how they pirouette and flutter and gather about! Playing with my white hair, offering me berries from my basket. As if I never left.

And now the music of acorn caps, fiddleheads, and flutes tumble-play and swirl into that bittersweet song of so long ago, my heart swept up and held in a warm, familiar embrace. Oh, My Love—it’s you! I rise now like a morning wind, rainbow-eyed and young again, humming along to the joyful tune of my childhood dream. Ethereal voices lift and swell about me with quivering harmony; within, I hear My Love join in. And together they sing, sing, sing me along.

First published in Space & Time Magazine in 2023.