Master of Time

The garden had been her home for several years. Or at least, she thought it had been years. She could not remember the first time she had stepped a foot in the place as she had simply lost track of time.

Time. To the outside world she seemed to be the master of it, her life unchanging unless she desired it. Time never moving without her say so. It was almost as if she could control it, yet she wouldn't admit to it. She felt she merely had to subdue time, it wasn't her's so she wouldn't claim the rights to it.

She often thought about who may have controlled time. Who it was that allowed her to subdue to her will in the garden where nothing seems real. She had a lot of time to think in the garden, there she could become one with nature, there she could set herself free.

The garden had barely changed while she remained in it. It was almost as if the garden was waiting for her to allow them to grow, as if she was in control of them too. Or perhaps it was the old clock in her hand. A clock which she had always kept by her side ever since she could remember being in the garden.

She had found it lying in the dirt; it's old hands were rusted as they struggled to move forward. She couldn't decipher why it had been left there but had decided to hold onto it. Just in case she passed the owner.

The first few hours she had spent in the garden she had exhibited an air of curiosity about her. The garden had come alive in those few moments, showing her their most magnificent masterpieces. It was almost as if the flowers had wanted her to stay. Slowly her curiosity turned to anxiousness as she worried for those she had left back at home.

Those who she had forgotten long ago.

The garden seemed to calm her in her miserable state. To inform her that all would be good and that she simply had to wait for the moment to come. When the master of time fixed the clock and brought her back to where she had come from.

Upon this discovery she spent all the time she could spare to the clock in her hands. She turned and twisted, did everything she could think of and yet it still wouldn't move. She had started to forget that her purpose was to subdue time and allow it to pass through the garden as she had done. She had forgotten many things in that garden.

It was the secret garden, where time stops and one can be lost forever. Curiosity killed the cat, as the saying goes and it resulted in many lost souls to the garden's mystery. Each of the lost holding a clock, turning at it's hands in a desperate attempt to free themselves from the garden's grasp.

One cannot find their way out of the garden again. Unless, of course, the master of time decided to be merciful.