Dating : Water once a week

A 15 minute flash-fiction ode to the spirit of nature.

The heavens open. Once a week, the slate grey Welsh sky tears at the seams and the tears of the angels fall to the earth.

In a grove where no one comes, no one sees and no one feels, there is the suggestion of a church draped in a climber: ivy. The climber grips the stone of a once hallowed building; deconsecrated by man, in all his hubris, and made holy again by the clinging tendrils. The pews of the church, the dome of the roof and the four walls that once held God are all gone. All that is left is the front of the church, with the base of two collapsed spires that couldn’t hold their weight through the centuries. A gaping hole holds the place of what was once the front door to the house of God.

Beneath the mottled grey sky the ivy is watered once a week, at least, without fail. No one comes and no one feels, but the rain comes, and the ivy grows. The ivy feels. It inches its way up the stonework, it feels the grace of the heavens drip down its stems towards its roots. No one comes and no one knows. But the ivy grows. The ivy knows. Its roots know the soil, know the warmth at the centre of the earth. They know the mineral richness of the loam.

No one comes and no one sees and no one prays here anymore. There are no human voices rising to the heavens. But there is still one lone voice of praise, ascending, ascending the collapsed spires of the church that couldn’t bear the weight of the ages and were felled by the neglect of the men who stood them there.

There is one voice that sings beneath the tears of the angels. It sings with the timbre of the earth and reverberates with the sheen of the light on waxy leaves that are covered in raindrops. The song of this voice echoes through the long gone hall of prayer and carries the wealth of the earth, the tingle of the light, the cold of the stone and the tears of the angels back to the house of God.

No one comes and no one knows. The rain falls. It waters once a week. The ivy climbs.