SAFE HAVEN

Susan Felt drained. She melted down on to a large rock and just sat for several minutes, brainless, her legs and arms weak. “Oh God! What have I started. How old am I and will my children really want to live with me if the world economy collapses? Will it collapse or is it all in my mind and do I have enough money to finish what I have started?” Suddenly it seemed as though all her confidence was gone. Confidence in her ideas, her abilities, her instinct. She sat and after a while she started to notice the trees, their timeless beauty, swaying gently in the breeze, a spider crawling purposely across the rock on which she sat, small insects stirring around her, birds flying from branch to branch or pecking at unseen insects or seeds on the ground. The smells of nature, the reality of life and gradually she regained her momentum and was able to follow her own logic and what had brought her to this point. “It is worth doing”, she said out loud, “even if the world regains its sanity, even if global warming miraculously recovers, even if my children reject me. What I will have achieved will be wonderful and can be used for other ideas, other people. I will go ahead if the guys are with me on this and I will look back in my old age and say to myself that I did this and it was a final adventure”. Then she rose and walked through the trees and up to the area that Sam and Frank had found, marvelling at the natural beauty around her.