{
  "schemaVersion": 1,
  "id": "texto-el-jardin",
  "language": "en",
  "canonical": "https://paynalton.tech/en/works/el-jardin/",
  "title": "The Garden.",
  "summary": "A garden preserves the memory of a shared life.",
  "author": "Paynalton",
  "format": "fiction",
  "year": 2009,
  "source": "https://paynalton.blogspot.com/2009/05/el-jardin.html",
  "partial": false,
  "topics": [
    {
      "title": "Stories and narrative",
      "url": "https://paynalton.tech/en/topics/lectura-categoria-cuentos/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Story",
      "url": "https://paynalton.tech/en/topics/lectura-cuento/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Poetic prose",
      "url": "https://paynalton.tech/en/topics/lectura-prosa-poetica/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Old Age",
      "url": "https://paynalton.tech/en/topics/lectura-vejez/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Love",
      "url": "https://paynalton.tech/en/topics/lectura-amor/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Memory",
      "url": "https://paynalton.tech/en/topics/lectura-memoria/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Death",
      "url": "https://paynalton.tech/en/topics/lectura-muerte/"
    }
  ],
  "body": "The Garden.<br><br>Rays of light softly slip through the leaves of the apple tree, gently illuminating, in a warm caress, the flowers that grow on both sides of the path. At the end of the garden, an old ornate wrought-iron chair waits for you every half-day.<br><br>White snow glimmers on your head as you cross the path over which lie a few dry autumn leaves that are already approaching. Carefully, leaning on the firm table, you sit down trying not to lose your balance.<br><br>Your body is tired and your skin has the color of the approaching autumn that has come to your life through so many years of joys and sorrows. In your trembling hands stands imposing that book which you have already read three times and yet its words continue to fill your heart with joy. How many times have you not thanked fate for allowing you, at least, to have the blessing of continuing to read in this garden?<br><br>Do you remember? The first time you stepped on this place you said it was a horrible site. Dust and wild grass dominated the landscape, something very different from what you had imagined at first when you dreamed that that prince would take you to a huge crystal palace.<br><br>\"This will be our paradise,\" he said upon understanding your discouragement, and he squeezed your hand, still soft, to give you that confidence he had always given you. \"You'll see that we can turn this into a beautiful place.\"<br><br>Do you remember? How many years you spent together in this garden, you reading this same book while he planted flowers for you. That apple tree that replaced the dying orange tree witnessed so many things.<br><br>Ten years ago he left home, gave you a kiss on the forehead, and crossed the door without saying where he was going. In the afternoon a neighbor gave you the terrible news that he would never return and that his last words were to reveal a secret place in this garden, full of letters, love letters, poems that he wrote for you.<br><br>For ten years a tear in his honor has sprung from your eyes when, for a moment, you sit in this place and you see him kneeling, with a dirty face and his hands in the soil, while he tells you things of little importance.<br><br>This afternoon is special. You have not yet finished reading this book again, but your heart has already begun to mark a farewell. Sleep begins to come with the breeze of dusk while the sun paints beautiful shades of crimson on the clouds. Your eyes close in response to the strong impulse that leads you to sleep a different kind of sleep, a sleep you have waited for ten long years and that now, finally, has come to lead you to the end of your life, to the reunion you have longed for so much.<br><br>Have you ever imagined it would be like this? Have you ever thought that the last moment of your life would be spent in a small paradise?<br><br>One of your children enters the garden, finds the book on the ground, your head resting on your chest, and a final exhalation escaping between the leaves of the apple tree to reunite with his beloved.\n"
}