The second smile in eternity

They’d have called it a desert, if there had been anyone to call it anything. It was a desolate plain of rock and dust, stretching endlessly in every direction. There was no life. Not an animal, not an insect, not a tiny green shoot, not even the skeletal remains of some ancient creature long since dead. Nothing could exist here. Nothing ever had.

Except for the old woman. She looked as ancient as the desert itself, with gnarled hands, a stooped back and a face so scrunched with lines that her eyes were almost lost within. Every so often the wrinkles would roll back, just for a moment, to reveal a glint of the most piercing blue, then her eyes would disappear back under again as quickly as they’d emerged. There was a twinkle there, a hint of knowledge and mischief, and of age beyond even the lines of her face.

In all the endless plain, she was the only thing that moved. She was totally alone. Yet every day she would observe the same routine, waking at dawn, leaving her cave and heading out into the desolate wasteland of the world. She would head for her favourite spot on the edge of the cliff, sit down with her legs dangling over the edge, and scan the horizon.

All day she would stare into the distance, sometimes focussing on one spot or other times on several, but nothing would ever move and nothing would change. As the sun set she’d return to her shelter and settle down to sleep, ready to begin the whole routine again when dawn broke the next day.

And so she continued, day after day, week after week, year after year. Time plodded on from sunrise to sunset to sunrise again, with the world never changing and the old woman never breaking her routine. Whatever she was searching for, she hadn’t found it yet.

But it didn’t stop her looking. She never wavered, never complained, never even so much as hesitated. The world span, and her gaze remained fixed on the distant horizon.

Stars created new constellations in the night sky. Mountains rose and fell. Yet somehow the old woman’s cave remained constant, along with her cliff-side seat overlooking the world.

Then one day, seemingly the same as any other, the first smile in eternity cracked the old woman’s features. She stared a moment longer at a single point on the horizon, then scooped up a handful of sand and abandoned her post at the edge of the cliff.

The next day she didn’t emerge from the cave at all. Nor the one after. All sorts of noises came out from inside, but not the old woman. Bright light blazed from the entrance, a fierce orange glow, emitting a more ferocious heat than any the plain had endured before. Strange sounds filtered through. Until finally on the third day, the old woman returned to the outside world.

In her hand was a glass jar, perfectly smooth and clear. She strode forwards, with the same sense of purpose that had always carried her to the cliff’s edge, and scooped up another handful of desert dust, letting it trickle through her fingers until the jar was half full.

From then on, the old woman’s vigil began anew. But now she no longer searched the horizon. Instead, every day she set the jar down on the sand, and observed it with the same intensity as she had the distant desert.

Once more the days drifted past, and once more the old woman kept up her routine, never pausing for even the slightest moment. Every day she emerged from her cave, placed the jar on the same spot, and stared at it.

It was weeks before anything changed. But then suddenly there it was - the tiniest hint of green, a little shoot poking through the top of the dust.

The second smile in eternity raised her lips. The satisfaction of a job well done.

Over the coming days the shoot continued to grow taller, sprouting leaves and reaching for the sun until finally it broke past the top of the jar. Carefully, tenderly, the old woman scooped the dirt from inside, shoot and all, and placed it in a hole in the ground, smoothing the dust down around it.

The next day when she came outside, there was a bud at the top of the shoot. The day after that there were two more shoots emerging alongside the first plant. And on the third day the bud opened with the dawn, meeting the sun with another bright flash of yellow.

The old woman observed her vigil one last time, sitting down for the day to watch her marigold bloom, and hundreds more tiny shoots begin their journey out of the plain.

As the sun began to set she clambered to her feet, nodded at her garden, then returned back inside the cave never to return.

Her vigil was over. The next chapter was about to begin.