MagiStream

Garden of The Lost (Mini Story for Science)
I don’t remember the last time I walked down the dirt-covered cobblestone path in the middle of nowhere. Everything in the garden seemed to be painted a dreary color, covered in a blanket of sorrow, slightly damp with the scent of distress. What happened here? Every plant I touch seems ready to breathe it’s last breath and wither away from the world, limp and unremembered. A bird’s song, one of the best things about a garden, can no longer be heard over the whoosh of the ice-cold winds and the crinkle of leaves that could no longer find the strength to cling on to their tree. The smell of ashes and dry dirt filled the air and find a way to attack my heart. I remember, five years ago, I was a mere eight year old. This garden was once so beautiful. As I walk underneath a threadbare and broken wooden arch, the memories come flooding back into my head. I still remember the sweet smell of the roses, the tulips, the violets, and the chrysanthemums. I can still heard the buzzing of the bees, the song of the birds, the croaking rhythm of the bullfrogs, the flicks of the fish tails in the water. I can still see all the healthy blossoms exploding with color and the stained-glass wings of the butterfly as it flutters past the joyful fountain. I can still hear the beat of the water as exits the fountain’s top, only to come crashing back at the bottom and start all over again. Start all over again. I remember the screams of war. The feet that trampled all the living goodness underneath it. I remember seeing this garden, once a masterpiece, a home for so many living organisms, ripped apart, burned to the ground, during the war. Start all over again. If I close my eyes, I can still see the maroon liquid that stained the white roses and the clean cobblestone. Start all over again. I can still hear the beats of the feet as they made contact with the fresh earth. Start all over again. I remember clearly, my mother, holding on to my father’s limp, cold, body, saying that we cannot just leave without giving these people a final resting place. Start all over again. My garden, our garden, that we have built from the heart of the earth, was destroyed during the battle and now carried the resting souls of the dead. It was nothing more than a graveyard now, a graveyard of memories. Start all over again. The last thing I remember was dropping a random seed that would mark where I buried my parents. Then, I fled from the garden that clutched the past of the lost with tears, hoping to find a place to start all over again.
Eight years ago, when I was five, my parents showed me the power of a single seed. I watched with a childish fascination as my mother dropped an individual seed into a miniature hole in the dirt. The flower wasn’t the only thing that blossomed. As I watched the flower mature, my mind began to develope as well, specifically, in the area of life science. My mother began to explain to me the process of how plants make food, or photosynthesis. My father began to teach me about structure of a plant, that plants were made of eukaryotic cells, and the function of the phloem and the xylem, which are both located in the plant’s stem. As the seed progressed in its journey to break the barrier between the ground and the sky, my mind began to blossom with knowledge of plant care and science. In a year, the seed had blossomed in a a beautiful mini rose bush. The roses were a chef d'oeuvre, brilliantly painted a bright scarlet blush, brilliantly highlighted in the sun’s glorious rays. This rose bush was the inspiration that sparked my intentions for building a garden that can only be described as a magnum opus. One more year passed. My family and I have build a garden that seemed to represent Gaia herself. The sunflowers seemed to stretch towards a treasure hidden inside the fluff of the clouds. The violets huddled together like frightened kittens. The blueberry, blackberry, and raspberry bushes produced fruit so juicy, so delectable, so sweet, that my mouth watered at the thought of the ripen fruit. The grape vines gracefully curved around latticework on my wooden fence. My mini rose bush has turned into nine rose bushes, painted to perfection. A marble fountain stood proudly, front and center of the explosion of color and plants. Every morning, as the sun smiles down on my part of nature’s humongous masterpiece, I watch with pride as the animals in my garden awake. The bees and the butterflies start their process of pollination, the robin begins to sing it’s morning melody to it’s little chicks, the worms become more cautious as they hear the chirps and tweets of a bird, and the cat that hides in the shadows of the peonies runs up to me for its breakfast. The garden was pretty much always a perfect temperature, not too hot, not too cold, with an average of about 75°F. I’ve notice a pattern with the weather. It’s sunny 43% of the time, cloudy 17% of the time, rainy 28% of the time, stormy 8% of the time, and windy 4% of the time. Snow is like a blanket that buries all my hard work, so I’m glad it never snows here. But then, when I turned eight, the battle...the battle that destroyed everything I’ve worked towards. I’ve watch my garden die, trampled under the footsteps of evil and fear. My garden, now, instead of growing pretty flowers and delicious food, grew the memories of the dead people, lost in the grip of evil, buried under the same dirt that my plants are. My garden is a graveyard for the lost people of Atlantis.
Atlantis was originally an island above the sea. People believed it was lost in a flood. They’re wrong. Atlantis never sunk. Atlantis was built on human belief. It operated in an area now known as the Bermuda triangle. The Bermuda was the only place on earth that contained more than a pint of magic. As long as humans believed in a civilization called “Atlantis” or something close to it, our civilization will continue to thrive. During a certain period in history, humans began to imagine of undiscovered places on the earth, that’s when Atlantis appeared. In 1881, a writer named Ignatius Donnelly proposed the idea that Atlantis actually existed. That’s when the “non-magical” people began imagining our island. As more people believed this was true, a path began to form on the ocean, slowly revealing Atlantis to the world. However, soon, people started to find the idea of Atlantis to be stupid and stopped believing in the existence of the island. The path was destroyed before Atlantis was ever fully revealed. As people continued to stop believing, Atlantis’s people and land started to disappear. The soldiers of fear, disbelief, and destruction killed our civilizations population. My father passed away first, struck by the spirit of calamity. My mother and I have buried my father, and other people who died, in our garden, hoping they could finally rest in piece. However, after my mother passed away, I no longer had any heart to remain at the garden. I fled. Luckily, some people still believe in our existence. I was one of the few people who survived because of that belief. It took me a while before I had the courage to return to the garden. When I returned, I was shocked. There didn’t seem to be a living thing in sight. The plants and animals that used to co-exist peacefully have all died. After further examination of the skeletons of the animals, it seems that they had began to fight each other for the remains of the food. I could see that the cat probably got tired of waiting for me to bring it’s food and started feasting on the birds and maybe even the bullfrogs. The poor animals must have become so desperate to survive after the destruction of my garden. The bees and butterflies have been replaced by ants and other decomposers. With so many non-living things in the garden, I wasn’t surprised to see them. I continued my walk down the garden. It’ll never ever look the same again. I don’t even know if I can do anything to fix this mess. As I walked underneath another shattered arch, something caught my eye. Something blood-red with a golden aura? That’s strange. I slowly and cautiously neared the scarlet and gold glimmer. I gasped. No. Way. No. Way. How is this possible? A mini blood-red rose bush was blooming at-is it possible? Could it be?- the exact spot where my parents were buried. This can’t be real. I touched a petal belonging to the little survivor, this blossom of hope. As I did, I heard a voice say, “A young child’s belief kept this plant blooming. He or she has a big imagination. Who knows, maybe one day, he or she will be the person who’ll pave the path from the ‘non-magical’ world to Atlantis and restore everything that has been lost.”