My five-o'clock walks are usually the brightest point of my day, and I mean that more than figuratively. Although tungsten and talk do make me happy, I need sun and silence. Every day I want to leave- so I do.
I was bouncing along an apshalt sidewalk, head hanging. It had been a bad day, but my feet were happy, and the sunlight was a sharp orange, which I hoped would effectively make me happy as well. The dark gray just rushed and rushed under my dad's old Tevas and I didn't bother, really, to track its motion. I just saw my feet, and a front to back whish of homogenous gray.
I almost trampled the flower- on most days, I probably wouldn't have seen it. But today I did, and although the tan and sweaty woman in Nike shorts used me as momentary entertainment, I picked it up and carried it with both hands along my path.
It was one of those ubiquitous yellow prairie flowers that grow everywhere but you can never remember the name of. Its bright green stalk had been bent broken in places, and apparently someone else had stepped on it- what petals weren't missing were wrinkled. But the color was beautiful, and I identified with it somehow. So I held it in both hands and walked on.
I am too large a person to hold such a small flower, but I am also too small a person to have picked a flower off the street. It had obviously been in someone's hair and had maybe fallen without their knowledge. I pulled a strand that had been caught on the botton end of the stalk, just like I would have automatically cleaned a hairbrush. The hair was black, and I immediately regretted pulling it. It belonged to the flower, but I had let it fall from my fingertips, and pieces of hair are hard to find again.
We passed a whole row of cars- I looked slightly ridiculous to those drivers who paid attention. Nobody did, really, but I still felt so. I also felt terrible for the flower, that had been left on the pavement by their picker and only a few minutes later, stepped on by a blind person. We passed a creek- and because I was looking down I saw the reflections of us and clouds. If God had a virus and sneezed white spatter across the sky, that's what those clouds looked like. No fluff. We continued.
I could not let the flower go, even when the woman I knew looked strangely at me. I had also not yet let go of the self-pity from before, but at least I now had company. We passed a dead bird close to my home. It had been run over on its back the first time, and, belly exposed, run over and over until not even the flies had food. We are not that bird, I told my flower. At least.
I came home, and rushed to put it somewhere, anywhere. The only pot I could find held my young tomato plants. They cut a strange picture, the flower being so more and so less than them. I realized the lack of roots means certain death in everything, and it was silly and cruel to remind the flower of something it could never have, around those who could. And then I realized that it didn't matter. It was a beautiful flower either way, in the windowsill, in a pot.
I went back into the hallway, and this is where the story stops being real. You see, I am not a flower, even though to grow I need to walk in the sun some. I talk to the tomato plants and it makes me happy.
In the hallway, I skipped, the newfound idea sloshing in my head. The flower idea. I skipped past doors and doors, and did not knock. I just thought of my flower, in the windowsill pot, by the tomato plants. I finally did knock on a door. A stranger opened it, and did not have any room so he closed it. This happened seventeen times, and I thought many things in between. Here are some:
It was alright, of course, I could always skip instead of entering. Also, inside was less sunny than the hallway, because the hallway had windows. Also, there were other doors. Also, it was unfair to leave. A woman before me sat and cried. She didn't open any more doors. She sat and cried and cried and cried. I had no nose, an organ I had not before realized was retractable. Apparently it is. Now slammed doors hurt only my mind, never my nose. Also, I did not catch the door in time before it swung. The dextrous could, which is how this hallway works, and I am not dextrous. This is my fault. If I stopped skipping I could learn kung-fu. Look! Some people are wonderful enough to be all of the colors, and skip! Their radiance and dextrousness gets them in doors because they stun the innkeepers. Also, I need to continue to skip, doors are distractions from my true calling. I skip out what metaphor I can, in beats. Music is the language of the sole. From the windows, those on the other side smile at me. They like my skipping. I am happy.
So to my flower. There are many radii for your worldview. I would suggest a small one, with just your skipping feet, rather than imagining what is on the other side of that wall. If I did not believe you liked them, I would never have put you in with the tomato plants. But they are plain soon to be red, and you are a beautiful yellow soon to be brown. And I am neither, because I am a talking, thinking person.
-Citron
I was bouncing along an apshalt sidewalk, head hanging. It had been a bad day, but my feet were happy, and the sunlight was a sharp orange, which I hoped would effectively make me happy as well. The dark gray just rushed and rushed under my dad's old Tevas and I didn't bother, really, to track its motion. I just saw my feet, and a front to back whish of homogenous gray.
I almost trampled the flower- on most days, I probably wouldn't have seen it. But today I did, and although the tan and sweaty woman in Nike shorts used me as momentary entertainment, I picked it up and carried it with both hands along my path.
It was one of those ubiquitous yellow prairie flowers that grow everywhere but you can never remember the name of. Its bright green stalk had been bent broken in places, and apparently someone else had stepped on it- what petals weren't missing were wrinkled. But the color was beautiful, and I identified with it somehow. So I held it in both hands and walked on.
I am too large a person to hold such a small flower, but I am also too small a person to have picked a flower off the street. It had obviously been in someone's hair and had maybe fallen without their knowledge. I pulled a strand that had been caught on the botton end of the stalk, just like I would have automatically cleaned a hairbrush. The hair was black, and I immediately regretted pulling it. It belonged to the flower, but I had let it fall from my fingertips, and pieces of hair are hard to find again.
We passed a whole row of cars- I looked slightly ridiculous to those drivers who paid attention. Nobody did, really, but I still felt so. I also felt terrible for the flower, that had been left on the pavement by their picker and only a few minutes later, stepped on by a blind person. We passed a creek- and because I was looking down I saw the reflections of us and clouds. If God had a virus and sneezed white spatter across the sky, that's what those clouds looked like. No fluff. We continued.
I could not let the flower go, even when the woman I knew looked strangely at me. I had also not yet let go of the self-pity from before, but at least I now had company. We passed a dead bird close to my home. It had been run over on its back the first time, and, belly exposed, run over and over until not even the flies had food. We are not that bird, I told my flower. At least.
I came home, and rushed to put it somewhere, anywhere. The only pot I could find held my young tomato plants. They cut a strange picture, the flower being so more and so less than them. I realized the lack of roots means certain death in everything, and it was silly and cruel to remind the flower of something it could never have, around those who could. And then I realized that it didn't matter. It was a beautiful flower either way, in the windowsill, in a pot.
I went back into the hallway, and this is where the story stops being real. You see, I am not a flower, even though to grow I need to walk in the sun some. I talk to the tomato plants and it makes me happy.
In the hallway, I skipped, the newfound idea sloshing in my head. The flower idea. I skipped past doors and doors, and did not knock. I just thought of my flower, in the windowsill pot, by the tomato plants. I finally did knock on a door. A stranger opened it, and did not have any room so he closed it. This happened seventeen times, and I thought many things in between. Here are some:
It was alright, of course, I could always skip instead of entering. Also, inside was less sunny than the hallway, because the hallway had windows. Also, there were other doors. Also, it was unfair to leave. A woman before me sat and cried. She didn't open any more doors. She sat and cried and cried and cried. I had no nose, an organ I had not before realized was retractable. Apparently it is. Now slammed doors hurt only my mind, never my nose. Also, I did not catch the door in time before it swung. The dextrous could, which is how this hallway works, and I am not dextrous. This is my fault. If I stopped skipping I could learn kung-fu. Look! Some people are wonderful enough to be all of the colors, and skip! Their radiance and dextrousness gets them in doors because they stun the innkeepers. Also, I need to continue to skip, doors are distractions from my true calling. I skip out what metaphor I can, in beats. Music is the language of the sole. From the windows, those on the other side smile at me. They like my skipping. I am happy.
So to my flower. There are many radii for your worldview. I would suggest a small one, with just your skipping feet, rather than imagining what is on the other side of that wall. If I did not believe you liked them, I would never have put you in with the tomato plants. But they are plain soon to be red, and you are a beautiful yellow soon to be brown. And I am neither, because I am a talking, thinking person.
-Citron
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