The path of a thousand flowers
I wrote this story for a literary contest at my university. It won second place in the advanced category.
Around her tiny house, flowers with names that nobody learned blossomed like magic, giving its vast garden exotic shades of every color known to man. It was a gorgeous experience just to stand there and look ahead, or to stand ahead and look at it. Clara will be home any minute now, thought Leah, while she sat by her window looking out.
The air was so fresh it felt like a handful of life. It was the purest of all air, there in their little corner of the world. Some times Leah and Clara would sit in their porch and try to come up with words for the smell of that perfect air. It smells like heaven peaches, or like sea daisies, or it smelled like love or like pink; they would say.
Leah stood up and glanced once more out the window, but Clara was still not around, so she walked around looking for something to do until she arrived. There was always more to do when Clara was around, but those things seem to be useless before and after that. She thought a little about it and walked into Clara’s room; maybe there would be something to do in there. She hoped she could find something to move around, something to clean, just something. She looked around her daughter’s room but it seemed very organized already. She was one clean and organized little girl. Like mother like daughter, she thought. Or maybe it was just that odd feeling that she always had that there was nothing to do when Clara was not home, and that is why the room was clean, but as soon as she got home, there would be toys everywhere and so much things to do that she would wish not to have wanted it in the first place. There must be something wrong here, she thought. She looked under the bed, inside the closet, behind the lamp, in the drawers, between the Mr. Pink Elephant and the dollhouse; but there was no sign of dust.
“She is way to clean for an eight year old,” she told Mr. Pink Elephant, who stared blankly into a wall “but it wouldn’t hurt if I make sure it stays this clean”.
The clock ticked four in the afternoon and Leah was walking into her kitchen, taking everything she needed to clean little Clara’s room, and make sure it stayed as beautiful as it was. She took a mop, a bucket with soap water and now she only needed an old rag. There it was hanging over the oven’s handle, all ripped and old. She trashed the rag and took out a fresh cloth from the storage room. Before going into the bedroom she glanced again out the window. What would Clara think if she suddenly came in a surprised her cleaning her room that was already clean and probably took her so long to clean and organize? She would feel like she did a bad job and might never even do it again.
Leah entered Clara’s room again and saw a picture of her daughter hanging over her bed. It seemed like just yesterday she was that small, that she could feet easily in her arms, and could be lifted without problems. She would cry and cry because she wanted to be picked up and swung around. Clara did not like to be still, and up to the date, she would not stay still. Her little baby was growing up so fast.
Leah started rubbing and scrubbing with the tiny new cloth soaked in water and a strong detergent that smelled like peace lilies, like Clara liked to call it. It was her favorite smell, and when Leah had the chance, without Clara knowing, she would clean her daughter’s room with it to make it smell fresh all the time.
She walked to the kitchen to put the things back, bucket and mop in the corner, and the cloth, now a dirty rag, to hang over the oven’s handle. Now Clara reaches the oven handle. Leah remembered when her little girl could not even stand up, and then when she could, she could not reach anything. The day Leah noticed that she could reach the oven handle was when the kid pulled a dirty rag from it and hid it. From that day on the kitchen rag was always missing, and she would find it months later in the most indiscernible places. That was a memory she liked to hold on to.
The clock ticked five and Leah’s heart jumped, she could not remember the last time she was so startled. She looked out the window, and she was looking to see if Clara was coming, she had to admit to herself that she was worried. But maybe I am worrying in vain, maybe there is nothing to worry about, Clara is at the Wesley’s, Leah rapidly thought trying to conceal her doubts.
Leah went to her little foyer, took a deep breath and opened the door. There she stood in the doorway for a couple of seconds trying to decipher the air, but at that moment it just smelled like the big nothingness she was feeling. She opened her eyes and looked up, to see an immense population of tall trees that hid the sky behind their glory and allowed to filter in just the right amount of sun rays to make the lighting and the temperature perfect. A ray of light that dashed through the brutal size of a sequoia went down and lost itself as it distorted into the distant darkness of the foliage. The nearest house was the Wesley’s, about a thousand flowers away from her door. Leah spent most of her time at home, that is why the Wesley’s had to come one day to introduce themselves as “the people who lived near” because “neighbors” in their case were the trees, the flowers, the insects, sun rays and fresh air. After they met, the Wesley’s frequented Leah’s house and always brought Clara a big apple pie that she loved. With time their visits became more and more infrequent and the girl missed them, so she asked her mother to let her go over to their place some times to keep them company and eat many pies. Leah accepted, because the Wesleys were very nice people. Mrs. Wesley even promised that she would let Clara help bake a pie, something she would really enjoy since Leah did not bake, and had an oven just to have a handle where to hang her rags over. She had been gone since noon, she must be having loads of fun, thought Leah.
“She’ll be back soon,” Leah told the centenary sequoia that wisely stood a couple of feet ahead of her “it is just five in the afternoon”.
Leah went back into the house and into the girl’s room and sat at the little tea table. Clara and she made the best tea parties; they had endless hours of girl talk and drinking gallons of imaginary tea while they talked about everything pretty in life. In the other seats she put two dolls and a toy elephant, at which she stared fiercely without meaning to.
“No, Mr. Pink Elephant, we cannot start the tea party without Clara,” said Leah to the toy trying to look at him sweetly “you know the rules, silly!”
“We’ve always had rules Mrs. Gold Curls,” she addressed a blond doll that resembled her little girl “I can’t believe you don’t remember our very strict rules after all the tea we have had together!”
“Yes, Mrs. Bella, we have been having tea parties for a long time before we met,” Leah was now sinking her eyes into another doll’s eyes “you must feel disorientated with all these social engagements we arrange around here, you most certainly did not accustom doing such things”
Leah stared at the doll as if she saw something more than a rag and wiggling eyes over a smile that could not be faker. The inanimate emptiness of the doll seemed now to be the most unobvious fact in the room, however, the most important.
Her eyes watered and she stood up violently. Her breathing was heavy, but somehow it seemed easier for her now to inhale the fresh smell of the air. It smelled like peace lilies, and Leah began to laugh frantically. Her chest contracted in unusual jerks and then she sat down again. God, I have been talking to Clara’s toys, Leah thought. They cannot hear me; nobody is here to hear me.
She calmed down and stood up again more slowly, and started to put the dolls back. Now they were just dolls, she did not feel the urge to talk to them or anyone. Now she just wanted to know when her little angel was getting home. Nothing else was important at the moment. Leah had fixed everything in Clara’s room back to its original position, she would not have wanted her daughter to get there and find out that her mother was so paranoid that she put up a tea party without her, inviting however, the dolls. Among all the toys that she had, Clara loved Mrs. Gold Curls, Mrs. Bella and Mr. Pink Elephant the most. On the contrary, Leah had never bonded too much with them. They were no such beings worth of bonding with. She always respected them very much and smiled when Clara talked to them, but she never addressed them voluntarily before. The girl would think her mother lost her mind over a one-time tardiness, and started to yell at her favorite dolls as a twisted consequence. She would simply know, she knew everything about her mother, or at least everything worth knowing. She was a smart child. She could read into people’s eyes and know exactly how they were feeling and why. That is the magic present only in children, and that is why they should not grow up and become corrupted adults. But Clara seemed to stay the same and not grow, even when her baby picture was every time more and more of a distant reminiscence of her. What could be giving that anomalous illusion?
The clock ticked six. The sun was beginning to go down and to become even more beautiful. Usually Leah could not see the sun when it was at or near its peak, because of the density of the high trees; but when it when down, there was a spot in between the trees where she could watch it sink in the horizon, and spill its gorgeous tints everywhere. Among the trees and through a couple of holes in vegetation the sun started to descended and Leah’s extreme anxiety started to rise like the bright shiner, but not to grant light of any kind, but to obscure her hopes with the shadowy mesh of fear she had been weaving in silence.
Leah sat by her front window and started to wait, trying no to glance at the wall clock, that at the moment seemed like the greatest enemy of all. She thought about how the steps it takes are irreversible, and every ticking is a moment that will never come back, a moment where you could have been elsewhere, a moment that could have been spent in any way, doing anything. The problem is that we never seem to be happy where we are standing. We always aim higher. The sky is not the limit, because there is no limit to human inconformity.
The clock ticked six thirty. Leah broke into hard sweat. She got out of the house to get fresh air, because inside it was at its thickest. It was thick air that burnt when inhaled. It was air full of waiting for hours, full of thinking that people were nice, of fake ideas of the world being a nice place. It smelled like horror movies. It smelled like nightmares and death. Then the sun was no more than a faint fiery whisper in the sky. Dozen of pigeons flew by casting perfect silhouettes upon the cold red that the sun left behind. They were definitely flying home, Leah thought, why can’t Clara do the same? Why can’t she graciously skip through the colorful path of a thousand flowers and impregnated with the smell of a day out with nature, hug Leah and rescue her from the doom of her desperation?
The clock ticked seven and its reverberant horror possessed Leah’s heart. Where is Clara? Where is she? Why is she not prancing towards home among the bright flowers, why are the birds’ contours drawn upon soft light instead of hers? Sweat is inevitable. The heart just can’t beat to a rhythm and the head can’t think straight. She started to twitch and jerk uncontrollably, as in a response to the attempt of doing something about this. How could she have been so blind? She was never a patient person, why did she choose to be patient today? Clara was not to be expected home by now, something must have happened.
The Wesley’s, it was entirely their fault. She should have never trusted them for the nice appearance. They did not even look that nice! Mr. Wesley was missing his little finger, how does a man lose a finger? Not a decent, nice old men like she was assuming he was.
“Mom?” Clara’s voice echoed in Leah’s head “did you talk to my dolls?”
But Clara was not there, Clara was only in Leah’s head right now, but she would have said that if she were there. Leah ran to the kitchen grabbed the rag and started to rub everything in the girl’s room, then ran back outside and looked at the high trees, calling her name.
“Clara!” she stood exhausted with a wrinkled hand on her forehead and one by her mouth to amplify sound. “Clara where are you? Are you on your way home yet?”
Leah started to run away from the house and into the intense vegetation that she had always avoided to make physical contact with. She ran a thousand flowers away and could not even recognize where she was for a couple of seconds, it had been so long since she got out, so out, this out. She continued to call her daughter’s name out loud expecting no response, getting no response, but it made her feel less like she was not in control, less like she was losing a part of her, or that maybe she had lost it.
The Wesley’s, Leah thought, she must be there, or close, or close to here in the way there, but she didn’t remember the way there, she had only passed by their house and Clara pointed it out, one time they were collecting flowers because they were sure they wanted to make the biggest bouquet ever, with all kinds of flowers, without caring what they are called, or if they hold magic secrets. Leah continued to run aimlessly until she finally found an abandoned house that she recognized for being close to hers. At least now she knew where she was, but there was still no Clara, no Wesley’s, no anyone who could help with anything. From there she followed a path around and among the trees that was lower on grass, probably because someone had walked a lot through that path, perhaps Clara. There it was: the Wesley’s house. It looked different, but she knew for a fact that she was in the right place. Leah ran to the door drowned in hysteria, and knocked at the door consistently and without stopping until a woman, younger than she remembered Mrs. Wesley answered:
“Can I help you Mrs. Delano?” said the lady with a worried look in her face “anything? You look as if you could use some comforting.”
“Do I? Do I even know you?” she said puzzled “Where are the Wesley’s? Let me in!”
“I am sorry Mrs. Delano,” the lady said with a sad look on her face and trying to help Leah from falling over her unbalanced by they weight of her preoccupation “I’m afraid the Wesley’s are not here because I bought this house from them eight years ago. Please tell me you remember, we have been neighbors since then. I am sure we have talked about this before Leah”
“Step away!” Leah pushed the woman and entered the house, she looked everywhere but she couldn’t find Clara or the Wesley’s there. Where could they be? This seemed like a horrible nightmare, as if she had been placed in a different dimension. How could the Wesley’s move out years ago? They lived there this morning! But, my Clara! Leah thought with uncontrollable fury and anguish. They have my Clara.
“She is small and beautiful, blond like sunlight. This morning she wore a dress that resembled a watermelon,” Leah said and started to cry “I love her so much, where is she? There must be something wrong; are there other Wesley’s around here? I know there must be!”
“Sit Mrs. Delano, everything will be alright” said the lady trying her best to be kind “sit here and I’ll go for help.”
“How can I sit? How can I be still!” she yelled back “You don’t understand! They have my kid, and they are not here, and you must be one of them because you are telling me that they don’t even live here! No wait!that they haven’t been living here the last eight years! Come on, eight years ago, I had no daughter!”
“I understand your panic Leah, but you are confused. Things are messed up here and I am going to help you. You just sit here in my living room please, I will go for help and I will be back very quickly.”
Leah sat, but she could be hardly still, she was trembling and crying out loud her child’s name. The lady went into the kitchen and prepared her a glass of juice before she left to “calm her nerves”, which she drank in two gulps. After fifteen or twenty minutes that felt like eternity had passed, the woman came back into the house, and shortly after, large man in a blue uniform and a plaque stepped in. Leah jumped to him in frenetic anxiety.
“Officer, officer! You have to help me! The Wesley’s! My kid! Clara! Love her!” Leah’s words became mutters, and now she simply did not have the strength to go on. She felt heavy and too weak to lift her own weight, and soon she passed out.
The policeman nodded to the woman, and a tear ran down her face in pity as she grasped Leah’s empty glass. The policeman lifted Leah and thanked the woman for her patience, then took Leah back to her house.
But how could she be anything but patient? She felt so guilty but powerless. She had been there and seen everything. Eight years ago as she moved in, the Wesley’s moved out in a hurry with a beautiful blond girl in a watermelon dress. She carried a pie and ate it very happily, and they promised that when they got to the new house, she would get more. It all looked so charming. But how could she have known that the little girl the Wesley’s took with them when they moved eight years ago was someone else’s little angel, someone else’s Clara?
The next day and everyday after that, Leah woke up and sat by the window, looking at the thousand different flowers that fluttered their playful colors against the wind. The sun was soon to be at its pinnacle, but Leah would not appreciate until sundown. It smells like peace lilies, Leah thought, and Clara will be home any minute now, skipping her way through the path of a thousand flowers.
