Blooming Hell

“This project will last the entire semester. You will be presenting your finished products in the last two classes. I have a list of names randomly paired off. Each pair will work together throughout the semester,”

Kaira sunk into her seat when she realized that she was going to have to work with another student on a major assignment. She wasn’t the social type. Humans scared her. They scared her so much to the point where she had to cover every inch of skin she could just so they wouldn’t touch her.

“Each set of partners will be assigned a theme where they have to create a composition around. If you don’t play an instrument, then you can electronically create it, but I at least need a music sheet version as well as an audio version. On the last days, you can either play a recording of your creation or play it live in front of the whole class,”

Kaira sunk deeper in her seat pulling her scarf higher up on her nose. Human interaction made her anxious, but she promised her mom that she would lead a semi-normal life. And that meant getting a minor in music for the time being.

“Jordan and Anna are the first pair. Wolfgang and Mark. Theresa and Sam. Hailey and Garret. Javier and Alex. Violet and Raven. Dan and Kaira. Matthew and Marissa. Take thirty minutes to get to know your partner a bit more as you will be stuck with them for sixteen weeks. I will come around and tell you your themes,” The professor announced.

Kaira stayed in her seat while others got up and found their other half. She looked around, anxiously pulling her white beanie over her ears. After everyone was paired up, she saw the one person who wasn’t. It must have been Dan, but he had his eyes completely closed. Was he asleep? Well it didn’t seem like he was going to go to her, so she had to take a deep breath and stand up.

She slowly walked over to him and sat down in the vacant seat next to him. She noticed a cane sitting up against the edge of the desk.

“Um…hello?” her voice was quiet but this caused Dan to smile.

“Oh hello, are you my partner, Kaira?” He asked, his eyes still shut tight.

“Yes, I am.” She suddenly realized that this guy wasn’t sleeping, he was blind.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Dan Bloom, short for Dandelion,” he sounded kind and offered his hand to shake but she only stared at it.

“Dandelion Bloom? That’s…” she didn’t want to sound rude or judgmental. “…interesting,” she finished.

“Yes, well that’s what happens when you have a mother who is obsessed with flowers. All of my nine siblings are named after one,” he explained, putting his hand in his lap when she didn’t shake it.

“No way? Nine siblings?” she sounded more shocked about the abundant of brothers and sisters rather than the weird names.

“Yes, do you have any?” he asked.

“No. I’m an only child,” she responded.

“Must be nice and quiet,” he commented.

“Yeah…I guess.” It was lonely for her. She only lived with her sick mother and her caretaker. She would have liked for there to be someone else close to her age to talk to back at home.

After a quick uncomfortable and awkward silence, Dandelion brought up a different subject. “So, do you play any instruments?”

“Yeah, I do. Um, there’s violin. I’m best at that one I think,”

“Violin is lovely. My strong suit is flute. I can’t play stringed instruments,”

“I can’t play wind instruments,” she said quietly, a bit embarrassed. Dandelion smiled slightly at her. “H-how long have you been playing?” she stuttered.

“Since elementary school. What about you?”

“Since I was five,”

“Wow, you must be really good then,” Dandelion complemented but before she could say otherwise, the teacher walked up to them.

“Kaira and Dan, your theme is loss.” The teacher looked down at a checkboard writing something on a paper, not paying attention to the frowns on his students faces.

“Are any other themes open?” Dandelion asked, and Kaira looked at him in surprise.

“Afraid not,” the teacher said and walked away. Kaira scrunched her nose at the man’s back as he visited another group, that time, actually making conversation with the students.

“He’s a jerk,” Kaira said the words before she could think about them and put her hand over the scarf covering her mouth in embarrassment.

“Agreed,” Dandelion said to her surprise, again. “So, let’s make sure we’re the best out of all of them at the end of the semester.” He had a smile of determination on his face.

“Agreed.”

They both set up a schedule that they would go over to Dandelion’s house on Wednesdays and Kaira’s house on Saturdays and since the first class was on a Friday, Kaira would host the first music session at two to four in the afternoon.

Kaira was nervous. She never had anyone over before so she made sure that everything was clean, dusted, mopped, and put in place. After everything was spotless, she remembered that he was blind and wouldn’t even see if it was messy, but it was already too late.

Dandelion was perfectly punctual. There was a strong and polite knock at the front door at exactly two in the afternoon. Kaira’s hands were shaking when she opened the door.

“Hello. Welcome to my home. Please be careful of the step and come in.” She opened the door wider worrying if she sounded too formal or not formal enough.

“Hey thanks,” Dandelion felt the step with his cane and gingerly stepped over it. “Great place you got here,” he said, and Kaira was about to respond when she saw his closed eyes. It was a joke. Her late responsive chuckle was dry.

“Um…so this room is the living room. The doorway to your left leads to the kitchen and the one on the right will take us to the bedrooms and bathroom.” Dandelion followed her into the hallway. “The door on the right is my mom’s room and she was helping me clean all morning so she’s sleeping now.” She was obviously lying. For some reason, she didn’t want him to know that her mother was mentally ill. She wanted to sound as normal as possible since he couldn’t see the abnormal way she dressed. On a daily basis, she wore a beanie with a winter scarf wrapped around her neck and face, a long sleeve shirt, gloves, and pants. She went through great lengths, even in the summer, to avoid skin on skin human contact.

“The door across from my mom’s room is the bathroom. And this is my room.” Kaira opened the door that was next to the bathroom. She didn’t bother to tell him that the door next to her mother’s room was her caretakers room. He didn’t see it anyways.

Kaira’s room was rather plain. The walls were only white, the bedsheets were white, her dresser was white, and her night stand was white. The only thing that wasn’t white was her pillow cases that were gray and her violin case that sat in the corner next to her nightstand. Her violin case was a velvety red. She was told it was a gift from her father. The only one she received.

“You can sit on the bed,” she said while Dandelion began to tap the furniture with his cane.

“This room is small. I can touch each wall with my cane standing here. Is this the bed?” he asked while tapping the leg of the bed frame with his cane.

“Um…yes.” She felt flustered. She hadn’t realized that having a small room was a bad thing until that moment.

Once Dandelion was sitting comfortably on her bed, she realized that there was a boy sitting on her bed. She had never had anyone over at her house let alone a boy, and now one was sitting on her bed crinkling the bedsheets underneath him. As the thought sunk in, she almost fainted. Instead, to distract herself, she turned and knelt down opening her violin case.

“How about we show each other our skills before we decide how we’re going to tackle this?” she suggested nervously trying to get her breathing under control.

“Sounds like a good idea. Are you going first?” he asked, smiling which only made her more nervous. A boy was sitting on her bed and was smiling like he enjoyed sitting on her bed. It was almost too much.

“Y-yes. Let me just…tune real quick. Oh!” She almost dropped her violin. “I forgot to ask. Did you want water? Juice maybe? Milk?” she asked, now rambling. She had never felt so nervous before.

“I’m fine. I’d rather hear you play.” That smile again.

“O-okay. One sec.” She began to pluck the violin strings and turn the pegs on the neck of the violin to put each string in the correct tuning. She hummed the correct pitch so the strings could match her voice.

“You can tune by ear? That’s difficult,” he complimented.

“I’ve been doing this for years—” She then realized that he had given her a compliment. “Oh it’s nothing. Not hard at all. I bet anyone can do it,” she told him, rambling again.

She stopped herself and cleared her throat. “Okay.” She took a deep breath and set the violin on her shoulder and her chin on the chin rest. Once her bow touched the strings, she lost herself in a long deep somber song. Everything seemed to go dead silent for the two minutes that she slid the bow along the strings. The world seemed to freeze. She could no longer hear the traffic outside the house. Her alarm clock stopped ticking. It was just her and her violin. She had also completely forgot that Dandelion was there.

After a few minutes, she opened her eyes and gasped remembering that she had company over.

“Oh. I’m so sorry. You must have been so bored.” She felt flustered as she dropped to her knees to put her violin away.

“Oh no. It was beautiful. I enjoyed it a lot. What’s that piece called?”

“It…hasn’t got a name yet,” she said.

“You wrote that?” Dandelion was surprised. “Seems like I’m in good hands then.”

Kaira looked up at Dandelion from her violin hearing the sincerity in his voice. Her eyes began to tear up. If only he could see how strange she looked, he would take back what he said.

“Um…you can play now,” she said quietly and Dandelion opened his flute case and began to piece it together by touch only. Afterwards, he brought the silver instrument to his mouth and began playing a very beautiful melody. It sounded happy at first but just got darker and darker as it went along before returning to a happy upbeat tune. Kaira was completely entranced. She could feel every note within her bones and it set off a very melancholy feeling inside her.

She was quiet for a few moments until Dandelion spoke. “What do you think?” he asked sounding confident.

“I don’t think I have the words if I’m honest…that was…” her voice trailed off trying to find a word to describe his performance but she couldn’t think of one.

“Exuberant perhaps?” he smiled and Kaira could feel her cheeks warm.

“Absolutely,” she responded.

For the rest of the two hours, they both went back and forth showing each other their skills and taking down notes for what kind of tone they wanted in each part of the song. They didn’t really touch on the subject of loss as it would be too awkward for a first time chat, so they just played around with their music instead and got to know each other a bit more.

“So what are you doing in a music class that will only teach you what you already know?” Dandelion asked. She sat on the floor next to the bed because she would have felt too uncomfortable sitting next to him on the bed.

“Well uh, I just figured doing something easy right now would be okay to pass the time with. I’m trying to get a major in music of some sort. I haven’t decided what area of music to go for or what to even do with it once I have it, so I figured I would figure it out along the way,” she explained. “What about you?” she asked.

“I needed somewhere to go when I got out of the house. My family is quite insufferable, so I needed an escape route. Why not audition for an orchestra. Surely you’re more than qualified.” The compliment startled her.

“Um…well…I’ve got stage fright. I wouldn’t be able to handle performing in front of a bunch of people, especially when I look like—” she stopped herself quickly, earning an intrigued expression from Dandelion.

“Look like what?” he asked carefully.

“I uh…well,” she stammered. “I have a skin disease that causes me to have a really bad reaction in sunlight, so I wear copious amounts of clothing all at once to keep me from burning,” she lied.

“That must be unbearable during summer,” he sympathized.

“I’ve lived with it my whole life so I’ve learned the best ways to go about it so it’s not a big deal,” she said.

“To think you’ve been struggling with that your entire life while I’ve only been blind for a decade,” he added.

“Did you get sick?” she asked before she could stop herself. “Oh sorry, that’s probably a rude question to ask.” She felt a little ashamed.

“No worries. Yeah I got sick. I usually tell people I was cursed by an old witch though. The reactions I get out of that are better than when I tell them I got sick,” Dandelion said with a smile.

“Are there things you miss about seeing?” she asked.

“Of course, but I miss color the most. I used to draw a lot as a kid. Afterwards, I just upgraded to sculpting,” he said.

“You sculpt too? That’s really cool,” she said sounding genuinely interested. “What do you sculpt?”

“I mostly make whatever I can touch into a clay replica. Flowers, people’s faces, random objects. Afterwards, one of my younger siblings will paint them,” he explained.

“Wow, I’d love to see some of them sometime,” she said.

“Sure, when you come over I’ll give you a sneak peak,” he smirked.

“Sounds like a deal.”

Ten minutes later there was a knock on the door.

“That’s my sister Rose. She usually helps give me rides along with my other sister Aster.” He stood up and began to disassemble his flute.

“I’ll go let her in. It would be rude to keep her waiting outside,” Kaira said and left the room before Dandelion could object.

When Kaira opened the door she was surprised to see such a beautiful tall woman standing at her doorstep. She had long black hair unlike her blond brother and her makeup was done in a certain subtle way that made her natural beauty stand out more.

“H-hello, you must be Rose. I’m Karia, Dandelion’s music project partner. He’s coming out now, did you want to wait inside?” she asked. She saw the look on Rose’s face when she looked her up and down. Like Kaira was lesser than her. Just a bug.

“I’d rather not,” Rose looked past Kaira into her house. “wouldn’t want to be contaminated.”

Kaira was shocked by Rose’s rudeness and immediately felt her cheeks go hot in embarrassment and anger. She snapped out of it though when she heard Dandelion behind her with his cane clacking on the floor.

“I’ll see you Monday in class then,” Kaira told Dandelion as he crossed the threshold.

“Yes, most definitely.” He smiled at her before he left and she closed the door. Not before Rose could shoot her a glare though.

She felt her heart drop in her chest. Maybe she was just overprotective of him. He is blind after all, she thought.

She shook the thought of Rose from her mind, and headed back into the hallway towards her mothers room. Even though she couldn’t hear her, Kaira still knocked on the door softly before entering.

Her mother was set up in her rocking chair in front of the TV exactly where her caretaker left her this morning. Her caretaker should be coming back any moment from her errands to check up on her mom.

She walked over to her mother and knelt down in between her and the TV. One look into her mother’s eyes made her heart sink more. They were lifeless and glued to the TV screen like a vegetable.

“Hey mom,” she started. “I’m working on this project for school with this really nice guy. He’s blind and everything so he can’t think I look weird. He has the potential to become my first new friends in years. Isn’t that exciting? I get to go over to his house Wednesday. I feel very nervous about it. I hope it goes well.”