Chapter 1
Chapter One:
I have always wondered why humans refer to women as flowers. Is it due to how they open to you? is it the beauty people see in them? I cannot speak for flowers, nor for women, but I have long felt an innate curiosity toward these both beings.
Throughout history, flowers have represented female sexuality, they are seductive in the same ways. From the Egyptian stories of Ra, where the Sun God is said to have been born from a lotus, to Indian culture where the ‘Padmini’ woman is said to enjoy sexual engagement much more by day, ’when her Lotus opens more under the rays of the sun’.
Upon examination, one cannot ignore the striking atheistic similarities between a flower and female genitalia. This is not to say I pottered around my Boarding School gardens with a ‘petal-inspired’ excitement…though I would be lying if I said it never happened. We even adopt the names of flowers and give them to women. Lily, Rose, Jasmine… To ’deflower’ has been a common term for losing one’s virginity since Victorian times.
The most odoriferous of flowers find kinship with some of the less cleanly women of the humanoid species, emitting an odour similar to that of raw meat. In the case of the flowers, they emit this odour in order to attract flies. In the case of the women…
In English, the definition of ‘flower’ extends to that of ‘the essence’ or ‘the best part’. Most notably, humans are born from the wombs of women. It is striking symbolism easy to miss, but once seen, it cannot be ignored. The reproductive organs of women are the flower of our existence. The intricacies of the floral and of the feminine find more parallels. As a ‘whoreticultiralist’, I am compelled to observe these similarities. In planting flowers you see, a living garden needs a healthy foundation to grow. Opulent soil, constant care and attention. Without these vital supports, your garden will soon be in ruin. It is this aspect I am most interested in, the upbringing. Not only due to having bloomed recently myself, but because I was raised in a garden built for a specific purpose. I will come to that later, but know that I have felt first-hand the evils of stifled germination. You see, with a spoiled upbringing, an incorrect raising, the burden of parenthood warps into a reckless abandon, a fire blazing across unkept woods.
The first time I had sex with a woman, though I had not laid in a meadow for some time, her bed felt akin to grass on the skin. I had not felt such gentle caress since the touch of my Mother.
In a world full of millions of beautiful, ravishing, flowers, I would like to tell you of three. Three individual flowers that are the most exquisite, the most fascinating I have encountered. Three flowers who’s petals I plucked, three holes I confess to have dug. Three burgeoning buds who’s lips would rust, three flowers with whom, I have broken trust.
It is as German Philosopher Karl Marx wrote in reference to religion, ‘Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain, not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy of consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and cull The Living Flower.’ I bring this to your attention to illustrate the opioid-like sedation I imparted on the flowers in my garden. The part I played, a pesticide to rest by their side.
I will tell you these events as I saw them, in the sequence I best recall. For if I did not speak of my flowers, you would not know of them at all.
I know now why it is I cared for my garden with such recklessness. Like a boy given dominion over boys below him, I have roughly abused my power. I have enacted malpractice, become what I so despised, as I too was once a flower, I too was once alive.
Baby Buttercup was the first of these flowers. A brave thing she was. Have you ever seen a boy kick a flower just because?
It was in a Pub in Southampton across from her Father’s Church where I first learned her name.
‘Buttercup…’ I said searching in her eyes.
‘Like the flower’, I nodded, she’d heard that once or twice.
‘I thought they were so lovely as a boy, in a flowerless room, it was easy to see them’,
She smiled with a brightness, I had her attention by the stem.
‘Do you know something about the Buttercup?’
She shook her little head.
’If you eat one, you will die, they are toxic to the end.
She loved when I taught her of what I know. I in turn, loved her silence. Despite the hardships of her life, I never thought her frightened.
Baby Buttercup was born, Jan 19th 1968. It’s a shame her days began, with a most unfortunate fate. It was the birth of this Baby that killed her Mother on this day. Raised by her Father, The Reverend with the same name, it was he who taught her, not to take her Mother’s blame. A good man by her account, though I thought nothing of the same. Merely for his occupation, should he hang his head in shame. More than once I saw him, too drunk for his age, swallowing his sermons, swigging a flask down to chase.
I am getting ahead of myself. Allow me to reset the stage,
There was a date I was too meet, and I was running late.
It was 1984, I was lost in Southampton’s rain. Weeping as I wandered, somehow I felt safe. My hair dripped and I feared black dye was running through and I did not wish to stain my only fitting suit. It was a few days before, when I was ill-informed of a truly grave event. The kind of news that rocks your views, I hadn’t seen the sun yet.
I knew The Theatre I was headed, mustn’t had been far, so tried and true, I’d find my shoes, cutting through a park.
Drunk, alone, I stumbled, solemn round the bends, Felt the rain that fell upon me now, would surely never end.
It is often in these moments, when one encounters a wall, does it test the atheistic view, no one’s listening at all. The rain ceased. Things slowed, my awareness did increase. A shadow passed right by my eye, there was a girl stood in the street. What wind was harsh, what night was dark, was suddenly a breeze, as I noticed, she moved closer, I avoided being seen.
Now in the foliage, amidst some bushes, I felt little more than a creep. Though only in silent observation, do you know what one’s like when they sleep.
Though light was bleak, I could see, from streetlamps and her strolls, a school uniform, maybe 16 years old. Observing out of sight, she walked right by me, my breath held tight. She was singing as she walked, her feet moved in time, her hair was black and dripping, her voice like a chime.
’Amazing Grace’ she sang like a siren from the rocks, maybe Grace was her name, her name it was not.
Fair and poised, this sighting lasting merely seconds, though I knew I’d seen a myth, hence my keeping record.
