Geoff Ryman - Child Garden

But that is not the end. There is no such thing as an end.

It was still Easter in Czechoslovakia, and Loving One was climbing a hill with her parents, through a wood.

She was still dressed as an angel. She wore a star and wings covered with crinkled resin. She was very tired, but her parents swung her between them through the air. It was as if she were flying.

The slope of the hill became less steep, and there was more light: Loving One was swung out onto the top of the hill, where the larches stood bolt upright like the tails of squirrels. She looked about her and squealed with delight.

At the top of the hill there was her home. There was the lipy, her lime tree and the hot white limestone house. The child broke into a run, shrieking with glee, into her field, over the grass that seemed to have hands and elbows, through the grass that seemed to part like a smile. Tatinka, Maminko, ghost-names ran laughing with her. There was the light flowing, there were the birds. The gates to the garden had been left hanging open.

The gates would be left hanging open in each moment, here, now, in Czechoslovakia or in England. Always.

SF writer Geoff Ryman was born in Canada in 1951, went to high school and college in the United States, and has lived most of his adult life in Britain.

His longer works include The Unconquered Country, the novella version of which won the World Fantasy Award in 1985; The Child Garden, which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1990; the hypertext novel 253 , the “print remix” of which won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1999; and Air , which won the Arthur C. Clarke and James Tiptree, Jr. Awards in 2006.

An early Web design professional, Ryman led the teams that designed the first web sites for the British monarchy and the Prime Minister’s office. He also has a lifelong interest in drama and film; his 1992 novel Was looks at America through the lens of The Wizard of Oz and has been adapted for the stage, and Ryman himself wrote and directed a stage adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s The Transmigration of Timothy Archer .