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It was spring the first time they exploded into my overgrown dewy grasses, water droplets glistening in the light of the new sun. Their stumbling feet disrupting hundreds of fluffy dandelion shoots, ones just freshly passed. However, it does not anger me, I know as well as them that there will be more the next time yellow flowers sprout under their feet. Dandelion fluff dances behind them up into the air, pushed higher by the crisp morning breeze.
They make a home for themselves that day, here underneath the shade of my black oak tree. They become giggling messes as they try to climb up the sky-reaching branches. However, they will not manage to climb that day, as the branches are too tall for them to mount, they settle instead for swinging from the smaller bending branches they can reach, and chasing each other around the trunk.
The two children remain with me until the sun reaches the middle of the sky, that’s when the first disruption came. By way of a maternal voice, one filled with fear.
“Louis,” she yells, voice cracking with panic.
“Harry,” she calls, voice stern.
That’s the contradiction of motherhood is it not? Overwhelming panic, and an undercurrent of anger, because what is anger if not fear overridden?
The children both jump at the voice of this mother, looking at each other with widening eyes as they take in the tones of her voice. It seems as though they could not decide whether to run and hide or remain frozen in place, waiting for an outcome.
Their chance to hide is quickly overruled by the appearance of a woman in my field. Her frantic eyes swept over my small clearing, locating the two children within seconds. The tension on her face bleeds away the moment she lays eyes on them. Her eyes welling up with tears as she jogs over, sweeping them both up in her arms.
“Don’t ever do that again.” That was the last thing I hear as she drags them out of my field.
~~~
Only one day passes before they return, in grass-stained clothes and dirt-mudded boots. They’re whispering to each other this time, words hidden under a blanket of secrecy. Where the previous day they had stumbled upon me, all frantic screams, and thrown limbs. It appears that this time they’re trying to remain unnoticed.
~~~
Several weeks pass, my grasses dry and my wildflowers bloom, igniting my home in a sea of rainbow colours. The sun stays out longer now, and so do the children. They still return most days, even if only for a few minutes. It is rare a day goes by that they do not hurl themselves into my grasses hand in hand.
The oak tree remains their favourite, they will chase each other for hours, with or without sticks they’ve decided are swords, only to collapse out of breath under the shade of my oak tree.
The mother has yet to return, maybe this is why they stay for shorter times, to avoid instilling that fear within her.
~~~
Autumn arrives, and my grass shrivels in the frosted air, matted down by the falling leaves of the overbearing trees. Rain falls more often than not and the days between the return of the children increase.
It’s almost winter the next time one of them appears, he’s alone this time. His caramel-brown hair stuck to his forehead due to the water pouring from the skies. He’s shivering as he walks over to the base of the oak tree, he shakes with more than just the cold. Increasingly loud sobs wrack his body, as he hugs his knees, sitting on the wet ground, surely sinking into the mud.
“Lou,” Harry’s strong voice can be heard cutting through the pouring rain. Sprinting into the field, he crashes in front of Louis, falling to his knees in front of him.
“I’m here Lou, it’s going to be okay,” Harry whispers into the still shaking head of Louis.
They hold each other until the rain lessens, and the clouds open up, allowing a few rays of sunshine to whisper through the field. Rainbows ignite in the distance, just noticeable through the gaps in my trees.
Harry gasps, “Lou look…a rainbow.” He points towards the colourful arch that only continues to build in saturation.
Louis lifts his head from its resting place on his knees, looking elsewhere for the first time. His red-rimmed eyes struggle to open, but the second they see the magical arch in the sky, they ignite with life.
“It’s going to be okay Lou,” Harry assures his friend again.
“It’s going to be okay, isn’t it?” Louis’ voice cracks with uncertainty, but his resolve seems to be growing.
They remain there, sitting in the mud at the base of my oak tree until Louis starts to shake again. This time from the cooling wet clothing sticking to his body. Harry stands, offering his hand to Louis. He takes it and they leave the clearing hand in hand once again.
~~~
It’s not until the Summer of the following year that they return. They’ve grown some, Louis is now almost half a head taller than Harry.
Every day that summer they return in full swing. They still attempt to climb the oak tree every time they visit, but they’re both still a little shy of getting up to those first branches. Another year or so and it’s likely they’ll be scrambling up her ancient arms.
Throughout the blossoming season, Louis picks bouquets of wildflowers for Harry who spends hours weaving them into crowns to adorn their creative childish minds. They frolic around my meadow, armed each day with new adventures in mind. Some days they are magical woodland creatures brewing potions; other days they are pirates hunting for gold. I am never certain which adventure will take them each day, but what I do know for certain, is that every day will end with them rolling around in my grasses fighting to contain their bubbling laughter.
The summer departs almost as fast as it arrived. Autumn rushes in, and the smell of decay permeates the air, pushing all living things to arm themselves for survival. Winter is harsh and unforgiving to those unprepared.
They return once that winter, the two of them, far too early in the morning. The sun had yet to rise, the skies only just turning from black to a lighter grey. They trudge through the snow, holding hands as always. Softly whispering to each other, their low-toned secrets fluttering around me, floating on cold winds.
“Lou, can we just stay here,” Harry whispers.
“Forever,” Louis promises.
Sun shines onto the crystals coating the ground, and the silent sound of the them tinkling fills the meadow. The two boys, who have fallen into slumber laying on the soft pillow of snow, wake to the heat from those beams, both startling. They are quick to jump up and exit the clearing.
~~~
Another year follows, full of new adventures and the return of sword fights, adorned with weapons of dangerous sticks and shields of wooden boards. They spend most of that blooming season with me, and none of the decaying one.
~~~
The next time flowers bloom in my grasses, the two boys arrive, this time with slabs of wood in their hands. It seems that their growth spurts have finally given them access to the oak tree. And not only do they want to climb, but they also want to build.
I do not mind their attempts at building a home here, I will still be here long after that wooden home has decayed and returned to the ground. It won’t be the first house built in my oak, and it certainly won’t be the last.
~~~
They returned day in and day out that summer, each day attempting a new way to build their first platform up in the branches of my oak. Alas, they do not exceed. Maybe slightly too difficult of a first project for their still immature hands. They are much younger than the usual builders I was used to hosting.
I watch as they trade brief glances towards each other every time they think the other isn't looking. I wonder sometimes if they know how special they are to each other and if they understand what I can see from a distance. Maybe how close they are blinds them.
~~~
On most days both boys exude jubilance, it seems as though nothing can shatter through the walls of pure joy they construct around themselves. Nothing physical can touch something that pure. They frolic unperturbed, no worries yet weighing them down on this earth.
Some days it's different. On the days when Louis looks like the sadness pulling on him is too heavy to bear, where the sunshine boy is hidden deep down, beneath its own storm clouds. My sun does the same, as though to show respect for Louis’ own state of being.
It’s on those cloudy days that Harry seems to do everything in his power to help him glow again. He runs around with newfound energy, imagination running wild as he tries to find a fantasy world Louis wants to stumble into. When that doesn’t work, he settles on making silly faces and cracking nonsense jokes until Louis' lip starts to twitch up into a familiar smile.
~~~
An incredibly cold and wet winter passes through into the brightness of another spring. This time, when the boys scamper into my grasses, they come with arms full of wood and someone of a much taller stature. Clearly still in his boyhood, but one more mature than Harry or Louis.
With this new boy in tow, they return every week and continue to build the foundation of their tree house. This newcomer more closely resembles the builders from the past. With his help, they build a platform for the foundation of their home quickly.
Then, he teaches them how to build up the sides of their soon-to-be home. He’s patient with them and doesn't scold Louis when he drops his hammer from the tree for the third time. Just laughs as he climbs down the tree to retrieve it again.
One day he just stops coming.
Harry and Louis arrive without him one evening. They climb the recently secured rope ladder up into the oak branches and lay down on the slabs of wood that are now their floor.
“Is Gemma okay?” Is the whisper that eventually falls from Louis’ mouth.
“Yeah, she's just sad,” Harry murmurs. “We’re all going to miss him.”
“Why is he leaving?” Louis asks.
“His family’s moving, I don't know why.”
Louis hums in acknowledgment, and the silence stretches out into the open dusk. No clouds hanging in the sky to cushion it. Tension builds as the silence continues to pull until it seems seconds from snapping. Only then does Louis move, he turns onto his side so that he’s facing Harry fully.
“Please don’t leave me Haz,” Louis whispers, shattering the silence with his near-silent words.
Harry rolls over to face Louis, his shocked hands reaching out to grab Louis' face. “I’m not going anywhere,” he sputters, confusion lacing his voice.
“Good,” Louis affirms.
Harry’s hands linger a moment too long before he pulls back. They roll back onto the cold wooden slabs, both looking back up into the branches, pointing towards the few stars that have started to show themselves.
Their hands lay between them finding themselves interlocked. Neither pulls away.
~~~
It seems that Louis is the one who leaves.
Harry bolts onto my unsuspecting grasses the next spring, crushing under his feet the sprouting dandelions. He’s grown, if Louis were here with him they would be standing at an equal height by now. But, Louis is not here with him. And something in Harry’s shaking form tells me this was not a welcomed absence.
In his distress he does not ascend the ladder to their treehouse, instead, he takes refuge under the shadows of those branches, hugging his knees, crying into the world.
~~~
Each day passes slowly this summer, and each day Harry bursts into my field with a purpose in his step and a missing half that haunts him. The heat becomes increasingly stifling, along with Harry’s increasing agitation. He has a purpose however, each day that Harry arrives, he goes straight to work on the treehouse. His own anger slowly draining from him with each pound of the hammer.
It’s not long before every side of the treehouse is finished. It’s a small thing, this box he’s finished for them. But, it’s enough, it’s an oasis that they both desperately need.
The following week, Harry starts to work on a small roof piece, just a flat of wood sticking out of one of the higher walls. It gives the home a little bit more space to feel complete.
It’s the next week that Harry starts painting it, green and blue, the colours Louis had suggested however many years ago when they first thought up this idea. He had said that he wanted it to blend in with the meadow they have come to call home, blue for the endless horizon stretching around them, and green for the grasses and trees that encompass their world here.
Once my oaks leaves start to turn orange and they fall one by one to the ground, Harry shows up once again, this time with a thermos of something warm, a few blankets and a bundle of flowers. Walking into my field, he looks around, seeking something, anticipation glittering behind his eyes. He sighs heavily, not having found whatever or whoever it is he is looking for.
So, he climbs the ladder, struggling with his one free hand, and eventually, he settles into his home. Laying the blankets down on the floor, he sits on the edge, watching over my meadow just as I do. His sharp eyes perceive every slight change in the world around him, the same ones I watch for every day.
The swirling wind plucking leaves from the surrounding trees, the grasses slowly dying as the frigid air forces them to give in. Flocks of birds fly overhead, all heading for warmer places so they can survive another winter. All the things that live and thrive in these pastures in the light of summer moving on in one way or another.
Autumn's purpose has always been to teach us how to let go, how to resolve ourselves to the circles of life, and how to coexist alongside the consistent cycles of life and death. So Harry sits and watches that cycle in action. Anticipating an evolution in his own life cycle.
It’s only once the sky has started to darken that I hear it. The sounds of running feet, squishing in the wet grasses, squeezing mud upwards from the earth. Louis bursts into the clearing, out of breath, his mud-covered shoes sinking into the forgiving ground. He stops for a moment, looking around at a place he has abandoned for so long. His jaw drops when he sees the treehouse. The colours are darkened in the dusk, but the blue and green painted wood still stands out in stark contrast.
“Haz… How did you?..” Louis trails off, taking tentative steps toward the oak tree. As though he isn't sure if he’s welcome anymore. Reaching the base of the oak, he reaches for the ladder, tentatively touching it, asking for permission.
“Come up Lou.” Is what Harry finally mutters. So Louis climbs up that ladder once again, his unsure, shaking hands grasping at every rung, heaving himself up.
Reaching the top, the boys both stand, facing each other. A breath passes between them, visible in the cooling air. They both seem tentative to move, as though something will shatter if they do. It only takes one gust of crisp wind to send a chill through Harry for Louis to burst forward, pulling the now slightly taller boy into a tight hug.
Nothing changes, but the air still feels somehow lighter.
Several moments pass as the boys cling to each other, and the soft sounds of their sobs reach me, not of sadness it seems, but something closer to relief. Their shaking hands clutch onto shaking backs, and they release. Releasing all the tension they have built up in each other's absence.
“I’m so sorry,” Louis mutters once they finally pull away from each other.
“Don’t–”
“No, I am Hazza, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t know why I thought I needed to become someone else, or even that I could.” Louis looks down, shame vibrating from him. “I never wanted to hurt you, I just didn’t know what to do with myself.” He explains further.
“It’s okay–”
“It’s not though, I hurt you–”
Harry surges forward, consuming Louis' attempts at apologizing as he presses their lips together. It stills Louis immediately, his hands fall away and his eyes slip closed. Harry’s own hands curl under Louis' face, holding him in place as he pushes harder into the kiss.
It only lasts a few seconds, but within those seconds their worlds shake.
“Oh,” Louis breathes when they pull apart. His hand comes up, fingers grazing his recently kissed lips.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn't have done that.” Harry’s voice shakes, his hands covering his own mouth as though he doesn’t believe his own actions.
“Shut up,” Louis laughs. “Can you do it again?” He asks.
Harry’s hands drop from his face, eyebrows pinched together. “Y– You want that?” He stutters.
Louis laughs again, even brighter this time. “Of course I do, always.”
“Always?” Harry confirms.
“Yeah, always Hazza.”
~~~
They visit consistently for a few years after that, spending endless days reading in their treehouse, having extravagant picnics in the heat of summer, heated snowball fights in the cold of winter. Louis never stops picking wildflowers for Harry every spring, and Harry never stops weaving them into crowns that sit on top of both their heads as they talk for hours about nothing.
One day in the autumn after a deeply cleansing rainstorm, the kind that pulls everything from the ground and makes room for what is next to come; Louis nearly steps on a worm but Harry pulls him aside before he could take that life.
“Would you still love me if I was a worm?” Harry asks that day, his eyes wide with uncertainty.
“Of course,” Louis responds, entirely serious, although the laughter can be seen behind his eyes.
More and more seasons began to stretch between their visits, each time they returned, their faces more structured, their height even taller, their voices deeper. The one thing that never changed was the way their eyes lingered on each other or the way their soft touches would caress each other. The love that flowed visibly between them never slowed.
It’s when their physical growth stops that I stop seeing them for longer stretches of time. It’s not never, but it’s not much.
~~~
The final snow crystals had just released themselves into the air when they finally returned together. This time they had brought their mothers, and another woman who I had not seen before. They spoke together about where people would sit, where they would stand and what colours would work best. It seemed that this time instead of building a home here, they wanted to build a moment, a cherished memory together.
~~~
When Louis speaks, his voice is strong, if I had not spent as many years listening to him talk, I would not recognize the slight shake in his tone.
“Harry, I’m forever grateful for the day we ran out on your mom. We bolted out the back door when she wasn't looking and stumbled into this place. Despite nearly giving Anne a heart attack,” Louis pauses, chuckling along with his friends and family.
“Sorry Anne,” he turns to her and winks.
“That was one of the most important days of my life, it gave us this.”
It was on this day in the middle of spring that the two boys who had spent their childhood with me had decided that this was where they wanted to swear themselves to each other once more. It was not the first time they had sworn to stay with each other in front of my watchful eye, but it was the first time they had done it in front of the watchful eyes of dozens of others. So we collectively watched on as the sun slowly began to set and washed the golden boys in golden light, and the flowers adorning the ground seemed to twinkle with delight. We had all been lucky to witness the blossoming of something as beautiful as a love like this. Reminding me that although these two will be but a blip in my endless life, the beauty in things fleeting is just as important as the power in things endless.
When Harry speaks it's through a thick cloud of emotion, one that’s already drenched his face in salty waters, and drowned his throat.
“Louis, the grasses of this meadow have held us both through every up and down life has thrown at us. This is the place where we found peace, the place we sought refuge, the place that comforted us through heartbreak and hardship, and most importantly the place we fell in love.” Harry sniffles, scrunching his nose up.
“You got this darling,” Louis whispers, not audible to their onlookers' ears.
“This meadow is full of firsts for us, the first and last time I ran away from my mom. Also, sorry mom.” The attendees' chuckle.
“Where we first made the promise to not leave each other, the place I first realized I was in love with you. Where we shared our first kiss.” Harry blushes.
“This is the place where we built our first home together, and I cannot wait to build another home with you.” Harry smiles.
“Let's just hope this one has a better roof, yeah?” Louis jokes through his own tears.
~~~
They didn't visit much after the day they had shared an impassioned kiss to the sounds of their clapping tear ridden audience. The day the sun lowered right as they swore “I do’s”, and the birds sang to commemorate the endlessness of their love.
It’s several years later that they return, it’s late spring, their favourite time to visit. Most of my flowers are in their final blooms, but they never fail to go out with a bang, so my fields offer the visitors a decadent rainbow symphony to feast their eyes upon.
They are once again not alone, no this time their booted feet are joined by the soft pitter patter of two much smaller steps running in from behind them. Two young children burst into my fields, not unlike their fathers did years ago. They’re younger than the boys were upon their first visit, but there is no doubt that they are their children, all wild hair and warming wild spirits.
The men walk as always, hand in hand, this time each holding one smaller palm in theirs, moving around the grasses to show all the remnants that remain of them throughout my field. The names they carved into my oaks trunk as children, to the initials they had carved into the same trunk the day they had married. They showed the children the pile of rocks that had once served as a fantasy fence to protect their home from evils. They showed their children the first home they had built together, the weathered tree house that still stood strong in my branches. One that had become a home to many forest friends throughout the years. But, most importantly, they showed their children what it was to frolic in these grasses. They ran, they hollered, they laughed with a sense of joy I had not borne witness to in many years, they wrestled each other to the ground, playfully rolling around in the final blossoms of spring.
They returned every spring and summer for many years to come, always accompanied by their quickly sprouting children. Children whose childish joys eventually began to dwindle over picnics, walks, and arguments. Children who turned to angsty teens, who turned to apathetic young adults, who turned to absent adults.
Through these years I watched as Harry and Louis grew endlessly older too. The wears of life finally showing on their seemingly immortal baby faces. Wrinkles permeated their faces, grey strands sprouting from their heads, backs slowly curving down towards the earth. Their bodies preparing themselves for their returns. They did not stop coming to visit me, although their visits became more and more sparse as their bodies slowed and their steps could not carry them to me anymore.
The final time they visited me, they were carried in not by their own feet, but instead cradled in the arms of their children. It’s the beginning of spring again when they visit this last time. Everything alive and singing for them, as though to wish them farewell.
Two curly greying haired people walked into my field that day, two who I had not seen in several years. But, two who I would not be able to mistake for strangers, for they bore such a striking resemblance to that of their fathers. Not even in appearance, but in essence, those wild spirits never faded through decades of turbulent lives. They are forever the images of their father's youth.
The two walk over to my oak tree and after whispering some soft words into the wind, begin pouring their vases out around the tree's base. My winds gust, picking up the ashes as they fall, bringing them to rest upon the long shoots of green grasses, settling on top of the sunshine-yellow dandelions that Harry used to spend hours weaving into crowns. The wind takes them to the tops of the oak tree so they can sit and survey their meadow, and the endless blue horizon along with me. I listen as the bright twinkle of Harry and Louis' childlike laughter dances through my grasses hand in hand one final time.