Today I saw them clearly. The cardboard walls I’d erected. The styrofoam insulation I’d posted. It was natural to put them up and attach them securely. Who wouldn’t after being hunted, stalked, bushwhacked, and attacked on every sly and sleazy level?

But it’s all over now. Every enemy is gone. Vanquished. And every reason they had to destroy me is gone too. I have no enemy behind the gate or at the door.

I AM free! And what a different kind of freedom it is. It is clean air to breathe. A clear and empty road ahead. Byways are my playground now. I can stop to smell the roses and not need to guard from the secret arrow.

How strange that I became their target. The palest of the innocent. The wandering sprite who loved a rogue they wanted destroyed. What a waste of their years after all! The rogue thrived and the sprite still walks. Wide-eyed and wondering. Bearing scars long healed to near invisibility. The greatest revenge.

Then I stumble across the old barriers. Now soggy and crumpled into heaps of mush. Clogging up the corners. Supporting only cobwebs now.

Get the brooms! The mops! Push them into the heaps of decaying rubbish from the wars.

I’m free to explore. I have won the territory. The expanse is open to wander where I will.

It’s over. I AM a new me.

Faith