The Oasis

This story is in response to competition 76 from @xpilar, who created the art you see below...

It is strange, what the passage of time does even to the most devastated areas, and to return occasionally to see the progress.

A great explosion denuded my homeland – two great powers of nature collided, and the combination made a desert of a fertile land.

It seems like it has been a sad forever since then, although it is not so long ago as I like to think.

So much growth was destroyed – the trees, the grasses, the creatures – in the blast.

Those of us who survived had a terrible decision to make: should we flee to new lands, or make the best of the new conditions?

The damage was very great, but the love of home is very deep.

I left, but others stayed as the land cooled and the steam condensed again into abundant water that pooled into low places.

Seeds – of the hardiest and the toughest plants – began to germinate around the pools of water, and were nourished for their hardy, still-nutritious fruit by those human survivors who rivaled such plants for hardiness.

Thus I was surprised to take a midnight journey to my old region and find it now an oasis, with tough plants and tougher people combining to create its stark but definite beauty.

I have met some of my friends here, and it is lovely to see they are doing well in their uncompromising decision to stay and rebuild.

What has been done cannot be undone – the lives that have separated have grown in their own ways apart, and things will never be the same again.

But there is an oasis here. It does much for the healing of my own broken heart to know that.