a place

I once had a secret place that no one but me knew of. With all my heart I loved this place; loved it enough to name it with a name that I never once spoke out loud to another living soul. It wasn’t a place of refuge, or a place that meditation happened. It was merely a place that I dreamt of when it was cold out, and one that I searched for treasures in when the sun blazed with adored heat. But all that aside, it was only a place that I could go to that no one else knew of, and that was enough for me.

I often thought that if I were to every need to run from the law, hide from a villain, or even just needed a place to out live the radiation of a Taliban nuke I could go to my secret place and all would be well. For when someone has a secret place, the belief is that nothing on this earth can hurt it. Others may defile it with crude jokes and mocking words if they know its name and that it in fact exists, if anyone has ever had a secret friend they would know what I speak of, but to destroy it is impossible; or so the belief goes.
I thought today would be a good day to show my secret place to my sons. As we walked to it, I contemplated whether or not I should tell them of its secret nature. As a good keeper of a secret should do, I weighed the pros and cons in my mind, determining the risks, and figuring how much their young souls would comprehend of what would be said and seen. And then as I thought and as we walked a new fear touched upon me, due to the fact of not going to my secret place in such a long time, would I know it if I saw it? That question was answered though through my recognition of its sound, its distinct and beautiful sound, long before I could ever have seen it. And then as I turned the bend, joy swelling in my bosom for the moment that my life would rejoin with my secret, horror struck me as there was nothing left of my secret except a hole in the side of the earth. With my courage, I took my boys to the side of the cliff and showed them where peace once stood. I have lost my little part of the world and I do not know where it has gone.