Flower Pot

Perhaps there never was a more malicious making than the flower’s pot. A device so dastardly made to slowly bleed the life from plants that are plucked. Water life support in a glass container. Take beauty from one place and put it in another. Watch it die. Petals flake away. Maybe it will desiccate in a way that it dies beautifully. Perhaps the fleeting life brought into a home has more purpose now, or simply purpose that is told. If the flower could speak? No I will not get into that madness. It’s a flower. A thousand roses I will bring for the one I love. Water in a wine glass and I give it place. But, how many people are flowers plucked? No purpose other than what one who plucks them might dictate. The air they make isn’t that great. Who cares what the flower says. Rather they’d watch it wither after bringing it thither into their life.

A lone woman sits by her window. The sound in the air was of silence and summer. The bruise on her arm ached so terribly. She wears long sleeves. Better to not look at it. It would go away with time. All things in time.

The door opened up and a somber man walks in. He hangs up his hat and stalks his way down the hallway.

“Eugene,” the woman was the first to speak standing and striding to the man. “You were gone all night long.”

“I was out. I had to get some things out of my head.” His voice was low in tone. A subdued anger lingers in it.

The woman holds onto her man with a hug filled with love. The sigh and stuttering of his breath signal to her he is crying.

“I am so sorry, Kylee.” The man finally returned the embrace. His voice shook. His strength pulled Kylee in. Love. It would sooth his hard heart. He pulls her away. “I hurt you. I- I-“

“Hush now.” The woman pulls herself into the man again. “You’re home now. You must be exhausted. Come to the couch with me, let me draw you a bath.” She pulled the man into the other room and sat him down. After starting the water, she sits beside him. He sat away from her but she chose to take the lead and pulled him in. His head sat upon her chest. “Don’t worry. I chased you. I made you. I should be the one depressed. I’m just glad you’re home.”

“No, I did this.” His head sits up. She pulls him back down.

“You are taking all this blame for everything. I am here too. I did-“

“Why do you chase me then?” His head pulls away, hurt upon his face.

“I need to make sure you hear my side too. I won’t hush up for you. I am a flower but I have my thorns.”

“But I told you over and over, could you stop, please. Why can’t you listen to me?” Kylee’s face changes to one who doesn’t seem to understand the words spoken. “We can pick up again, start talking later.”

“Oh no, I do not like this tone.”

“What tone I’m-“

“You sound angry,” she said even though there was none.

“I’m not-“

“Will you do what you did again?”

“No-never.”

“Then go in there and take a bath and when you are good and clean, come to me.” The man seemed to empty headily obey her command. She watched her man go on down the hall where she heard the water turn off. She let out a long sigh and leaned back into her couch, still staring to where the sounds of a man getting into a bathtub could be heard. Her flower just needed a little bit of water. He would be fine again. They would be fine.