The Orange Tree

The snow was a brilliant pure white, quietly drifting down from the clouds above and settling on the rolling landscape of The English North like icing on a cake.

At times like these, nature was its most magical. Transformed by the flurries of drifting snow, you found yourself in a new world; one that captivated your every glance and widened your eyes in amazement at the majesty of nature. The world was truly in those brief, glorious moments where the golden sun would peep through the clouds, every house, no matter how grand, became a crystal palace that glistened majestically with every beam of light which fell upon it.

There seemed to be an air of playfulness that shone in everyone's eye, from the tiny children that darted around with reckless abandon to the wizened elderly, who muttered to themselves as they carefully traipsed the snow-shod streets.

Emma, 18 years old, wearing glasses, freckled, with piercing green eyes and relentlessly curly hair, hated to be trapped inside on a day like today. The classrooms of her college were dimly lit, and its walls seemed to ache with an inconsolable sadness as if to sympathise with the plight of the students trapped inside, condemned to work against their will. Emma ached to be outside, tearing a path through the mounds of snow which piled up outside. Every moment she was in college she ached to be free. She ached to claim her own sense of self again.

The day passed like any other in college. Repetitive, monotonous and utterly useless. When the school bell rang, she was glad to escape from the oppressive, melancholy atmosphere which seemed to hang in every classroom and pervade every word she wrote upon the pages of her schoolbooks.

Normally, Emma would take the same path home, but today, Emma broke from routine. A small distance upon her walk home, she spotted a seemingly forgotten snow shod path. Emma endeavoured to look further. The path began on a hill, steeped in snow and accompanied only by trees which stood fortuitous and lonely against the snow drifts, which threatened to engulf the path entirely. She'd seen the entrance to this path many times before, but never properly walked along it. And, whilst the path was more difficult than her normal route - at points, one would have to battle through great mounds of snow, at others, one would have to master an ascent up ice-covered slopes - Emma enjoyed it all. She had slipped into mundanity and routine for far too long, always taking the same, well trodden path. She had done so for such a long time that she no longer noticed how bored she'd become with her walk home. Emma was alone, away from all the stresses of home.

There was a certain loneliness in the busyness of everyday life, Emma thought; a strange anachronism. You are surrounded by people, but, strangely, alone. You show one face to the world, and, in your mind, have another. Even the closest of friends might not see who you truly are. Maybe, eventually, you'd lose that face, the face she showed to the world all she really had. She wondered whether there was ever someone she could turn that true face toward.

She broke from this reverie at the sight of a figure, making his own way up a number of the hills along this route. She was startled for a second, not having expected to see another on this lonely path. A certain indignation rose within her. He had the gall to encroach on her path! The grey of his uniform was complimented by the burgundy of his bag, hanging low on his back and flopping about as he walked. And then, as suddenly as he had come into her view, he turned, and was gone from her sight,

Finally returning home, her uniform now soaked through with the snow through which she had so valiantly battled through as she walked home, Emma darted up to her room and threw herself onto her desk, strewn with paper and ink, pencils, pens, rubbers, sharpeners, watercolours and acrylics, paint pots and sketchbooks, schoolwork and homework, all huddling, crowded together to form a towering hill of clutter. Just the way she liked it. Everything had it's own place within the mess. Her hands instinctively knew where each little artifact that lay upon her desk resided. She could assemble her supplies in autopilot; every little thing she needed to create something new and wonderful was at her fingertips. Everything to create a little piece of a new world - something she could call her own. This was where she was most comfortable. It was undisturbed and unashamedly who she was. It was here that she could show her true face.

She readjusted the glasses upon her nose, which had a habit of falling down from her eyes in frustrating frequency. Reaching for the implements of her creative powers, she began to work. Around her she assembled watercolours, brushes, paint pots and pens, hardly thinking as her hands reached left and right, as they scoured through drawers and reached under and over piles of paper. Of course, there was no need for her to begin in such a way, but she loved to do it all the same; it marked the beginning of her creative process and helped the ideas begin to flow. It was routine, by now; she'd been doing it since she was small, with nothing but a pencil and some felt-tips.

She pondered for a moment, and then picked up a pencil. Letting it drift over the page of her sketchbook, she outlined the curves and slopes of hills, the lonely, dead trees, and the muddy, forgotten path. she drew the boy she had watched that day, treading upon that path in front of her, completely unaware of her presence. She drew him as a distant silhouette, framed in the centre of the page, his footprints in printed into the colour. Painting the brilliant white of the snow, the washed-out grey of the skies, the rich brown of the bark of the trees, the deep green of the ever-perseverant shrubbery, and then, carefully - ever so carefully- the grey on the silhouetted figure's uniform. In the foreground, she painted a rabbit, which tentatively peeked it's head round the branches of a leaf-barren bush.

Then she sat, staring at the painting. Why had she drawn the boy? And who the heck was he?