Paradise… you ask me to imagine this place.
Well… it’s far away. No one can touch this world.
It’s very beautiful.
Flowers are blooming into beautiful roses, white roses, black roses, yellow roses, purple morning glories, pink roses, pink morning glories, daisies, dandelions, and all sorts of shapes and colors of mountains.
With a beautiful mixture of colors in a sunrise over the crest of the mountains.
Causing a pink glow in the midst of a purple sky, with white clouds in the mixture.
You can pick the flowers, but choose not to.
Unless you pick the dandelion.
You see the multitude of loved ones. The ones who hold your heart.
And as you turn away, you feel as though it’s safe. Safe to runaway.
You come to the gate. A gate made of white gold, trimmed in brass.
Emeralds within the structures. With laces of black, white, and purple, and pink.
You can smell the seductive aroma of the perfumed grasses so elegantly growing and swaying in the ever so gently breeze.
You open the gate by the brass handle and enter into a world of ecstasy.
You lay down in the fields, flat on your back.
Looking up at the sky, all alone in the field, you just close your eyes and feel the comforting warmth of the shining sun, glaring down upon your skin.
You are soon lost. Taken to another world.
That will eventually leave a smile on your face.
And you are really happy. There is no faking it. You are perfectly content.
This is paradise.

10-10-1989
Written by Gail Brookshire
Inspiration: A writing challenge from a friend asking what paradise meant to me.
I was 20 years old when I was answering this.