Copyright everything to who it belongs to. Yadda yadda. Yadda yadda is, incidentally, one of my shortlist of acceptable Americanisms. Just thought you'd like to know.
By Tim Fletcher
The colour of grass and leaves in the bright sunshine is a very distinctive one. A glowing, almost fluorescent yellow-green, painful to look at but bringing with it such memories and sensations that it is at least bearable, even enjoyable. In the grass’ glare all things seem more and less real, more and less threatening, more and less wondrous.
It was amongst this shining greenery that Lara Croft found herself. Standing, dressed comfortably in a soft, plain blue dress, feet bare and touching the springy matter below. Her long hair fell in loose cascades about her thinly-covered shoulders. She was unencumbered by equipment or weapons.
Somewhere at the back of her mind, Lara found this fact troubling, even upsetting. That same part of her mind, a part that was not conversing with her at the present time, remembered images and sensations of where she had been previously. A warehouse, a room filled with boxes. Men with guns, a great many of them. Some surprise at their numbers. A sudden ending of awareness.
But this unconscious thought did not communicate with Lara’s conscious processes, and for now she was merely content to be standing in an overgrown field, glowing in the sunshine overhead, the sun set in a brilliant cerulean blue sky, tiny patches of bright white cloud scantily cast across the heavens. Ever so quietly, in the background, hushed as if not to disturb her, she heard the twittering and cheeping of country birds, beautiful in its diversity and music. This sound mixed with the equally lovely trickle of running water somewhere off to her right, gentle and relaxing.
She stepped forward through the tranquillity, feeling the soft grass tickling and rustling at her toes and ankles. She was so glad, so happy that she had found this place, though why and how were of no concern. Just remaining here was enough of a reason to exist.
Ahead of her stood a tree, a gnarled oak, rising proudly through the long grass to tower above her. Its leaves were perfect, a shining green mantle over its dark branches. There had been many such oaks in her childhood, enjoyable whether you climbed them, played under them, or just took relief from the heat of the day.
Though the sun was beating down with no barrier, Lara did not feel unpleasant under its warmth. Still though, she thought of how nice it would be to stand in the cool shade of the tree’s spreading foliage. She moved towards it, heading for the patch of shadow.
Soon, sooner than she had expected, she stepped into the protected area. It was calm and as pleasantly cool as the field had been pleasantly warm. Beneath the sheltering branches she could while away the hours, and maybe later return to the hot sun.
There was someone in the tree, looking down at her.
The first thing Lara noticed, what stood out most in the (even here) glare of the sun, was that the person was dressed all in black. It - she - was a girl, no more than sixteen years of age, with terribly pale skin. Lara felt a slight touch of concern about this, but settled on the resolution that here in her fields nothing untoward could happen to a visitor. The girl’s attire consisted of a pair of well-cut jeans, some small black boots, a black cotton top, and an Egyptian emblem of life, made of silvery metal, hung around her neck on a fine black cord. Her hair was black and abundant, and fell to her neck in a wide cascade. Her lips were painted black, or possibly a muted grey, and beneath her right eye was a small symbol, a question mark or a spiral, or some other tiny circular image, lay.
But the most distinctive things about the girl were her eyes, and her smile. The eyes told Lara that the girl knew who Lara was, where she was, why she was here, and many, many other things. The smile told Lara who the girl was. She was a girl who loved her, loved everyone in fact, so completely and thoroughly that Lara felt she had always known this.
‘I know who you are,’ said Lara quietly, without hesitation.
The girl’s smile grew wider, and she gently hopped down from the low branch on which she had been perched, landing softly amongst the grass.
‘Hello Lara,’ said the girl in a voice as beautiful and soothing as her face, ‘Do you like it here?’
‘Yes,’ replied Lara calmly, ‘Very much so. Am I dead then?’
She asked the question without hint of sorrow, pain or fear. The answer was returned in the same manner.
‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘Oh,’ replied Lara happily, ‘I see.’
- - - - - - - -
They sat together on small outcroppings of stone that grew from the grass near to the river. The thirty-two year old woman and the teenage girl threw small sticks and stones they picked up from the bank into the gently flowing water, watching as they sank with a plop or floated off downstream.
Things flowed more clearly now. Thoughts that had escaped her before came to her easily. She remembered where she was, who she was, why she was. She wasn’t sure if she had ever remembered these things before in her life, but she knew now that she had once known them and knew them again.
‘I never used to be like I am now,’ said Lara finding a dry, hollow twig.
‘People are always like they are,’ replied the girl with a smile, ‘They just don’t necessarily realise it at the time.’
Lara pulled her arm back and flung the stick forwards into the river. It dipped beneath the surface for a moment, before bobbing back and sliding away with the current.
‘It was very well hidden from me then,’ said Lara, ‘I felt very differently about things in my youth. Rush and pressure were unknown to me. There was pride, of course, and etiquette and appropriateness, but it was a game we played under very simple rules. The only difficult part was accepting that you had to play by the rules. After that the game was easy. Do you know what I mean?’
‘Yes,’ said the girl with feeling, ‘I do.’
‘Even in my early adulthood I saw nothing to question the way I had chosen to live my life. The social graces by which I existed were as palpable and as real as the people I met and the food I ate. They were an inseparable part of who I was. And then I found out that I didn’t need them any more. The crash, the surviving, did more than just show me my capabilities. They changed the way I perceived myself and the way I perceived both the world and the part of the world that I was a member of. Suddenly I didn’t fit there any longer. My view of humanity was wider than that.’
‘You realised who you are,’ contributed the girl.
‘I suppose so, by your definition,’ said Lara, ‘Of course, the others did not appreciate it from my point of view. I rebelled against them - I was not as enlightened as I had thought – and they soon rejected me. Everything that I had once had was no longer mine, I no longer had access to it. But I didn’t want it. I moved out into the world, where I discovered a way of life that suited my abilities and my temperament better. I felt...’
‘Liberated?’ suggested the girl.
‘Yes, liberated,’ said Lara, ‘There were no borders. I had lived within a cage without noticing, not because the bars were pretty and golden, just that no one had ever pointed them out to me. Now I could fly, perhaps still within a cage, but a much, much larger one.’
There was a pause.
At this point the girl turned to stare at Lara. She looked out of the corner of her eyes, and felt the soft pressure of the girl’s gaze on her cheek. Lara’s eyes flicked down, and she suddenly realised what the rocks they were sitting on were.
She jumped to her feet.
They were gravestones. Overgrown, long buried amidst the rapacious organic matter, but gravestones all the same. And labelled as well, names filled with moss.
HERE LIES
MICHAEL LARSON
FONDLY
REMEMBERED.
1968-1997
said the one she had been sitting on, and between legs of the girl could be read
MARCO BARTOLI
1962-1998
WHO LEAVES IN
HIS WAKE A WIFE
AND DAUGHTER.
SADLY MISSED.
Lara backed away from the graves and the girl, towards the stream.
‘Why?’ she asked, her eyes blurring, ‘Why here? This is my place. Why have you put these here?’
The girl hopped off the stone and moved slowly towards Lara.
‘I didn’t put them there, Lara. You did.’
‘I didn’t put them here!’
‘Well, to take things literally, you did,’ said the girl, her meaning clear.
Lara covered her face with her hands and backed even closer to the river. She felt the mud of the bank with her heels, a marked contrast to the soft grass.
‘They, they were trying to kill me. Larson, he, he attacked me. Tried to shoot me. I let him live. Then he tried to shoot me again. I-I couldn’t let him try for a third time. We were in the middle of the Egyptian desert, there are no authorities there. And-and Bartoli was a dragon. I had to stop him, and he stopped being human when the dagger entered his heart. There was nothing I could do to save him. The-the dagger did it.’
The girl was nearer her now, ‘Are you sure?’
‘Well, I had found the Talion, had unlocked the seal on the temple. I suppose without that he would not have had access to the dagger, but they were scouring the ship thoroughly. If I hadn’t been there, they would have, would have-’
She noticed now that the whole field was covered in gravestones. Everywhere she looked, grey shapes rose from the bright green grass, calm and tranquil but holding terrible truths within and under them.
Lara stumbled on the river bank. The girl’s hand shot forward, gripping her forearm firmly. Lara turned her head back and looked at the fast-flowing water behind her. It was probably harmless, but falling into its depths seemed somehow terrifying. The girl pulled her back onto the grass. Lara grabbed forwards, hugging the girl’s slender shoulders tightly.
‘Lara,’ she said soothingly, ‘It’s okay.’
‘Why these things?’ sobbed Lara, ‘Are you congratulating me for giving you all these people? Are you condemning me?’
‘I’m not doing either of those things, Lara,’ said the girl, ‘I’m just the guide, not a hoarder or collector, and certainly not a judge.’
They hugged a moment longer, Lara drawing strength from her companion’s fastness. Then they separated, and Lara looked into the girl’s deep, ancient eyes. Around them the graves had blanked, no sign of inscription on their pale grey surfaces. Indeed, they could just be stones, rising out of the ground, overgrown by the grass with the passing years.
- - - - - - - -
They were walking through the field, along the border of a line of woods, from which the birdsong came. The sun was lower in the sky, a pleasant late afternoon light, perfect for walking. They had been discussing the different kinds of trees, when Lara changed the subject.
‘What happens to me next?’ she asked, ‘Where do I go?’
‘You’re not going anywhere new yet, Lara,’ replied the girl with a smile.
Lara stopped walking, ‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re only technically dead,’ said the girl matter-of-factly, ‘You’re not actually dead, in the real sense of the word.’
‘You mean...’
‘Yes, you’re going back. This isn’t your final visit. I just wanted to come and talk with you for a bit, while you’re here on the borders of the sunless lands, just to-’
Lara had started giggling softly.
‘What is it?’ asked the girl.
‘Well, if this is the way to the sunless lands, it’s rather well-lit.’
‘Yes, I guess that is rather ironic,’ said the girl, ‘Still, it’s time you were getting home.’
‘Home?’
‘Where the heart is. I’ll see you next time, Lara.’
‘Yes,’ replied Lara, and vanished.
Death stayed for a moment, looking around with a bizarre mixture of marvel and ennui, feeling the sun on her face and the grass at her feet. Then she vanished too.
Moments later, the whole landscape faded from view, leaving... nothing.
- - - - - - - -
Within a fortnight, Lara was recuperated enough to walk. The bullets had punctured several organs, but miraculously the doctors were able to patch her up.
As she stared out of the hospital room window, down at the grassy common outside, she was sure she saw a young teenage girl, dressed in black, standing in the shade of a massive oak, looking back up at her. Lara was sure she recognised the girl somehow.
Then she was gone.
Lara turned back to the room and headed for the bed.
fin