The villa was near the center of the peninsula of experience. For I had only ever been to the South, West, and East of the Land of Lost Hope. Perhaps it was an island, or is a continent merely a convention of the large?
The villa stood atop a sturdy mountain, with plenty of space it existed within the golden hour. At all times the sun would be at an angle so as to illuminate everything in light that brought to surface the colour of jewels in the most mundane. In this light a California oak lead shone as a priceless emerald. The sky was always blue with just enough cloud cover to make it known that you were not alone.
I began my journey in the arcades of the villa surrounding a courtyard. All around me were warm terracotta red tiles of pleasing thickness. All the arches were intricately detailed in ways that one could not look at directly, but merely seeped into perception as the frame of reality. The courtyard had a fountain at its center that changed from moment to moment, a cascade of thought would see it become a garden planter, or a mosaic spread flat ready for dancers to descend. Not that they would, for I was truly alone here in the villa.
I turned away from this courtyard and walked to the southern edge of the villa, until I came across a view of the mountains and the setting sun. For the sun would always set wherever one looked, the golden hour must always be upon your view no matter the method. Before me spread a large rectangular blue pool, decorated with intricate and rich royal blue mosaics that pressed right up against the view. On the far right corner towered the largest California oak I had ever seen, sturdy and thick it spread its domain over a small patch of crumbled earth dotted with grass. Its boughs spread over the top of the pool and it seemed to curve around it, with the edges of its reach scraping both the sky and the tile.
Indeed one could see how some of the leaves settled on the surface and danced to the tune of the thermodynamic cline. In that same thought I found the memories of sunset play, of running around the tree chased by laughter I had given mere moments before. This was a place to be a part of, not a place to detachedly observe and trace the contours of.
So I dived in. Feeling my body slide into that pool was unlike anything I have felt before. I could feel how every muscle connected to the flows of water around them, the tug of Naiver-Stokes mimicked in my every turbulence. I opened my eyes and looked upwards at the tree, it’s understory lit up into fiery emeralds, my mind turned and I saw beneath me the mosaic similarly limned in that golden heat.
There I rested; with the susurration of leaves driven by the setting sun, the gentle tug of waters gracious hug, and the mosaic blue surrounding me. I was within and without, a centrepiece of a jewel and the light that bounced around every facet to taste their colours. Still I felt the sense of impending doom, but here it did not matter, for I knew if I were to shatter that each fragment would shine just as bright in that Sungold Villa.
This was perhaps my favourite place in all of The Land of Lost Hope, but I visited it the least. With the benefit of age I wonder if the lesson was that no perfection of experience would wash away the feeling of The Land of Lost Hope. That the only true way was to accept that and be appreciative of my part in this world.
Regardless it is an experience I wish to seek again before I die, so that I may float with the hollow now filled.