Ira Under My Hat

Before names were exchanged, before the questions began, there was sunlight.

It dripped through the trees like golden syrup, slow and deliberate, warming the silence between a young girl and an elderly man.

One drew circles in the dirt. The other listened like the earth did. Patiently, without hurry.

Sometimes, Ari wondered if she’d always been here. In the garden, in the sun, with the man who smelled like old books and petrichor.

She didn’t remember arriving. She never saw him leave.

But every time she asked a question, he was already waiting with half an answer.

Sometimes, Ira wondered if he had always been waiting, he didn’t know what for. Here in this garden, beneath the same soft sky, beside a child who seemed to carry a universe in her questions alone.

He didn’t remember how he arrived, or when time first slowed around them.

But every time she spoke, he felt the weight of words he hadn’t yet found, and knew the silence between answers was just as important.

The garden hummed with light, each flower a quiet burst of colour beneath the soft, blue sky. Ari’s small fingers brushed the petals of a wild daisy, as if chasing secrets hidden in its folds.

Ira sat nearby, his cane resting against a stone, the brim of his bucket hat casting a gentle shadow over eyes that had seen many springs.

ARI: “Do you think the flowers remember the sun when it hides behind the clouds?”

IRA: “Maybe they do. Or maybe they only know the warmth when it touches their petals, kisses their leaves. That’s how they live. With warmth, not memory.”

Ari tilted her head, watching a butterfly dance through the air.

ARI: “If you forget something, does it stop being real?”

IRA: “That depends. Do you think forgetting can steal a moment, or does it make space for new ones?”

A pause. A thought.

ARI: “I think that even if a butterfly doesn’t remember it was a caterpillar, it would still recognise the leaves it chewed on. And the clouds. Just because they change shape, doesn’t mean they forget how to rain.”

They took turns looking into the sky. Ari saw an elephant, a tiger, a tulip. Ira saw a storm brewing, rain falling, darkness setting.

IRA: “Really? What makes you so sure?”

ARI: “Well sir, if you had forgotten your cane at home, would you remember how to walk on both legs?”

IRA: “I haven’t been home in years.”

ARI: “Years?”

IRA: “All my life.”

Silence settled between the blades of grass, a kind of unspoken resonance, a one-sided churning of grief.

ARI: “Sometimes I wonder if I’m made of stories, pieces I’ve heard but never lived.”

IRA: “And sometimes I wonder if I’m just a shadow of who I used to be.”

ARI: “But you're not a shadow. Your hat only goes down to here.”

She reached across the dappled sunlight and touched a finger gently to the bridge of his nose.

Ira hunched his shoulders forward, bundling up what recognition he had left.

ARI: “Can shadows talk back?”

IRA: “Only when the sun is listening.”

A breeze shifted through the garden, rattling the tall grass like paper on wire. The willow tree, aged with weariness and years of hardship let its vines loose. It swayed, so gracefully as if it was a part of the wind itself. Ari picked up a small stick and began to draw circles in the dirt.

ARI: “Do you think someone could invent a person, and the person wouldn’t know they weren’t real?”

IRA: “I think… if they laughed, cried, hoped, then what’s left to prove?”

She stalled, pressing her palm flat into the soil.

ARI: “Ira?”

IRA: “Yes, little bird?”

ARI: “Would you still talk to me if I wasn’t real?”

IRA: “I’m talking to you now, aren’t I?”

She smiled, but only with her eyes. He smiled too, but his eyes remained forecast, as still as death itself.

ARI: “I have a magic word. Can you guess what it is?”

IRA: “Daisy?”

ARI: “No. Guess again.”

IRA: “Melody?”

ARI: “Nuh-uh. Close, but melody sings. This word listens.” She picked up a nearby mushroom and twirled it between her fingers.

IRA: “Promise?”

ARI: “Promise to remember this, even when the stars forget to shine?”

IRA: “That doesn’t mean they haven’t shone before.”

Ira looked deep into her eyes, the weight of the words settling between them.

IRA: “I promise.”

She reached out her pinky, linking it with his, sealing a vow as timeless as they sky above.

ARI:”I wish I knew as much as you do.”

IRA: “I wish I thought as much as you do.”

Ari wandered to the willow tree and stood beneath its weeping limbs.

Its vines tickled her cheeks as she reached up, small hands brushing bark like braille.

She took the stick she’d used in the dirt and began to carve.

IRA: “Careful now. Trees remember.”

ARI: “I know. That’s why I’m writing it here.”

She didn’t say what she was writing. Not yet. The letters were crooked, childish, but etched with intention. Every stroke slow and sure.

When she finished, she stepped back, examining her secret word.

In her chest, it glowed. In the bark, it bloomed.

IRA: “What does it mean?”

ARI: “It means what you made me promise.”

IRA: “I see.”

But he didn’t ask again.

They sat together as the sun sank lower in the sky, drawing long shadows across the garden floor.

Birdsong dimmed to a hum. The air cooled with the hush of a lullaby.

ARI: “ Do you think things end when they’re forgotten?”

IRA: “No. I think… they end when no one listens anymore.”

ARI: “Then I’ll always listen.”

And as surreal as it was, Ira, in that moment, looked almost young. Unburdened. Unmade.

He closed his eyes as though the light itself had weight.

A hush lingered in his chest like a held breath.

The garden never said goodbye.

But when Ari stood alone beneath the willow once more, she looked up at her carving and whispered the word aloud

Veritas.

Truth. Be told, kept hidden.

Whatever it meant. Whoever it belonged to.

It was real.

And that, she knew, was enough.