The White Flowers With Yellow Spot Inside

Standing still thrilled by the sunrise in the middle of the road, I was thinking about how lovely this world is and how I desperately want to live, breathe and watch this exact sunrise forever. I wish I could share this feeling with her and make her feel alright.

Today I woke up early to find those exact flowers she likes and always brings home from her everyday forest walks. These walks were so crucial for her that she never missed a day even if it was raining, cloudy, or extremely hot. And every single time she brought these flowers. White flowers. They were so bright, as if the shine was coming from every petal, every stem overflowing and taking the space around.

It was getting heavier with every step I made towards the forest, which was always so dark and scary, so I hadn’t had any intention to go with her there. But when she was getting lost among these tree trunks, I felt that something inside me cracked and crumbled as if my soul was a crispy chocolate cookie.

Now this feeling was encircling me, crying, whispering, forcing me to turn back. And I was so close to do so, but then I saw an astonishing lake and a house standing on the other side of it. The strange thing is that I’ve never seen this outside of my window on the second floor, where the whole world of this neighbourhood was seen. My curiosity took over, and I made a few insecure steps toward this place.

As I was coming closer, I noticed the flowers, the white flowers with a yellow spot inside, she is mad about, near this old house on the other side of the lake. My attention was caught by a see-through still water and a complete silence that wasn’t interrupted even by one lonely bird. The house was silent as well as if it had been watching me without a word. The reflection of the forest frozen in its windows was hiding anything that could be possibly going inside the house. It seemed like these reflections served as accomplices to the unknown inhabitants of this place.

Flowers. I switched my attention to those white-coloured angel-like flowers growing and glowing under this frightening window. I found a way to reach them through the thicket left to the lake. My snickers were filled with viscous mud and smelled like swamp grass. “It’s strange, - I said to myself, - her toes were always so clean when he got back. Possibly, there is another way to get there”

I raised my head to see how long is left and saw an old lady standing right near the flowers. Her grey hair looked messy and dirty, her hands were holding a part of her apron. She was silent. The whole world was silent. My toes were drowning in mud.

Everything inside of me was telling me to go away and leave the old lady here in this silence. There was a thought that I didn’t want to believe at all: what if this woman was the death itself? What if it was that exact old lady who goes and looks for the souls? Forget it. I was scared and probably messed up with conclusions.

The old lady was staring at me and I made a step forward against my raising fear. “Hello!”, I said gently.

If the silence could speak, we would never find it out. So, she was talking to me in the language of silence. “I want to take some flowers for my girl at home. She usually comes here to grab them, but today she’s a bit sick…and I…”

I left my speech unfinished because the woman went back to her house and slapped the door so loud that the birds went skimming along.

I was left alone, staring at those white flowers. The desire to take them and run was circling me. So, I made a step forward. One more. And in a few seconds, I was near them, right under the old lady’s window which was still protected by forest reflection in it.

I took scissors out of my bag and gently cut them. At one moment, I realized I was warmly smiling at these flowers because they meant a lot to me. They always reminded me of her.

When I stood up, it seemed like the sun was already going down, though I left home early enough to be back before the sunset. The lake was darker and the trees around heavily swung back and forward, getting rid of their leaves, which at one second became black and brown.

“The rain is coming”, I thought to myself, crossing the road between two banks. Suddenly, I caught some movement in the corner of my eye. It was clear that I’d seen a crocodile with a long green tail in the lake. I turned my head, but the water was still.

In a second, I heard a splash on the other side of the pool. One by one, two angry crocodile eyes appeared. They started staring at me as if I were their number one victim. My body froze, and my brain could only think about the flowers that I was holding in my hands. I couldn’t lose them. I couldn’t come back home without them.

The crocodile approached me. A few moments later, I noticed that the lake was crowded with these green animals! They crazily attacked the whole perimeter, sitting on each other in some sort of crocodile piles. The water was getting darker with every second. The storm sky was getting angrier.

I ran.

No idea how I’d come to the road leading to the village. My memory was off. My body was exhausted, as if I’d been running for three hours.

But this wasn’t my village.

At least, all the houses seemed familiar, but they looked like candy houses. No wood or bricks. Just piles of candies.

I approached our house and called her name, but nobody answered. “She’s still asleep”, was my first thought, and I looked at the flowers in my hand, smiling.

But they were black and wilting.

And the only thought I had at that moment was, “Will I see her again?”