The Girl In The White Dress

A story about a mysterious encounter with a girl in a white dress, based upon the above painting entitled 'Girl with Flowers on the Grass', by Maris, 1878.

I came across her quite by chance in an art gallery I was visiting in Amsterdam. Captured on canvas, in the quiet stillness of a dimly lit room, she rested in a sparsely grassed glade, bathed in sunlight, lost in her own little world. It was as if she was patiently waiting for somebody to arrive unannounced. There was something about her that caught my eye, and even from a distance, I felt drawn towards her. She was a girl I had never met, I knew that, and yet I felt as if I had seen her before sometime in the long distant past.

One day, in those long lost tender childhood years, at play in the woods, I saw the self-same little girl from the painting, in real flesh and bone. At that time, I wondered if her presence was merely an act of escapism on her part, just like mine was for me. I was an introverted child escaping to a nearby wood to chat with my "special friends," and find a little peace from those who took pleasure in tormenting the skinny little kid from the wrong side of the tracks.

There in my very own heavenly den, I would get down amongst whatever sparse flora and grass there was, and play with nature's colourful abundance of broken twigs, stems, and wildflowers.

It didn't really matter what I could or could not make out of whatever bits and pieces of nature that fell readily to hand. The important thing was to give my hands something harmless to do whilst I drifted off into a world of my own. I would listen to the sound of nature, the warbling of the birds, and the whispering of the leaves in the trees, the soft and gentle blow of the wind in the grass and across the nape of my exposed neck.

I used to imagine that I had friends from another world in the woods, people kinder than in real life. They would speak softly to me, telling me that I was a beautiful child of nature and that everything was going to be alright, in the end.

The mysterious girl that I saw before me in real-time, was alone and almost mimicking me as she too sat in the grass, in her case, making some sort of garland from dew-fresh dandelions and bluebells. As she looked across at me our eyes met and I heard her delicate voice whisper on the wind "He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me…"

I was so happy when she got to the end of a string of flowers, and with the very last flower I heard her say "…he loves me." And as she said those last words, she looked up and smiled across the clearing at me. Right at that very moment, my young heart melted. Young as I was, it felt like what adults called love. Her beautiful smile beamed across and filled my heart with joy. And the world suddenly seemed to be full of bright colors and beautiful birdsong. And right on cue, the sun came out and bathed me in its warming glow, making me think that it felt good to be alive after all.

Neither I nor the girl for one moment thought to get up on our feet and walk across the clearing to say hello. It was as if some precious, magic spell had been cast and we were afraid to break it. I wanted those few golden moments to last forever, and I secretly hoped that she felt the same. She certainly seemed to be in no hurry to get up and leave, and that was exactly how I felt too.

Suddenly, other voices began to filter through the woods, some adults by the sound of it. I looked around to try to locate where the voices were coming from, when just as suddenly the voices stopped for good. When I turned my attention to where the beautiful girl had been, she was gone, gon., go.., g…, …. !

I never saw nor heard the girl arrive or leave. One minute she was there and the next she wasn't. Who she was and where she came from was a complete mystery. She was a beautiful vision that suddenly appeared, she touched my heart and soul with a smile, and then she disappeared into thin air.

Over the following weeks, I sagged off again whenever I could slip out of school undetected. I always planned to arrive in the woods at the same time as the time I had last seen the blond girl. I never saw her again.

Was she for real, a figment of an over-fertile imagination, or maybe even a ghost? I felt a sense of loss, of something very special, a precious gift from the universe. Was it what they called puppy love? Who knew? All I know is that I seem to have spent the rest of my life looking for that little girl.

Once or twice I thought I saw her in a crowd, but she slipped out of sight in the blink of an eye. I thought at the time that, perhaps, I am destined to pass through this world all alone after all. And all that I have to hold and cherish, is a vivid image of the girl in the white dress, and a nice warm feeling deep, deep inside. It has been a sense of love that cannot be denied and comforts me in my hours of need. I used to hope that maybe, one day, she will come back to me, maybe on the other side, this time for all eternity.

Then, back to that art gallery in Amsterdam, looking at the date of the painting, I realised why I would never find the girl in the white dress. For certain she had long since passed to the other side. And then came the sudden realisation that what this meant was that it was perhaps me who was the ghostly vision, not her. I was an unwitting ghost of a child from the future.

I had somehow, supernaturally, travelled back in time to an age of innocence and the simple pleasures of playing in the grass. And it was only the girl who saw me, not the artist who painted the picture and captured a magical moment for all time.

Perhaps, in her lifetime, she often wondered about the mysterious boy that was me. And maybe she asked herself, who was I, where did I come from and where did I go? And then I thought, maybe she spent her life looking for me. Maybe we are destined to meet again on the other side of this thing we call life on Earth.

I would like to thank fellow writer and editor Joe Luca for his invaluable help in editing this story. Thank you Joe.