That Doesn’t Mean My Eyes Will Soon Be Turning Red

White flowers bloomed in the misleading winter sun and covered the dry limbs in a flurry of soft petals. Each day they expanded and covered the brown of the tree to the extent where only the trunk could be distinguished as being not white. Homeward bound, I'd walk under these out-of-season blossoms and feel grateful for their initiative. If only I could be this brave.

Through the week the white flowers grew heavy and tended to fall, one by one, onto the sidewalk, sometimes onto my shoulders. They didn't take up residency here, it wasn't their place and with only a minor push they were gone and once again the sidewalks and shoulders were clean. The heavy white flowers sat in the tree and stayed there through the night.

I woke up one morning to the rain. It was pelting sideways against my window and I couldn't quite see it because of the condensation that had built up through the night, but the mumbling roof and the car tires tearing paper in the streets confirmed its presence. I was slow to rise, the blankets were heavier than usual and even when upright, movement was restrained. Coffee didn't help. I let it sit in the pot too long and after being mixed with a bit of cream it was too cold to cheer me up. It should burn, not enough to scold your tongue, but enough to make you stop and think about each sip you take. The motivation to start the day just didn't exist. I got back in bed and pulled the sheets over my face and stared deeply into their fibers. I saw the cross stitch and where the thread had snapped and been retied and I blinked as the sheet pushed my eyelashes into my eye. It was then I saw them. White flowers, weathering the rain, knowing that the sun would be back for them and refund whatever integrity had been lost in the storm.

From a distance I could tell their color had changed. More gray than white now. I looked down at my shirt. Raindrops had left a gray pattern on it and this made me feel better. For I knew, that even though the water had turned the shirt grey, once dried it'd be white again. Likewise with the flowers, I felt they might have only been wet, colored gray for the time being. As I got closer though, I noticed it wasn't the water that had changed the color. The flowers were no longer on the branches. Sharp, erect branches trying to run away from one another were restrained by their ankles and caused a commotion atop the tree's trunk. I looked at them in shame and wondered why they couldn't just get along. It was a crime only understood by the ones involved and in recognition of this I drew my eyes to the ground and walked on by.

Mere casualties were the flowers. Trampled and disfigured. They lay on the sidewalk lifeless and beautiful. Pretty as blood in the sun, pretty as the buzz before sleep, pretty as the lustful rendezvous between ex-lovers. They let me down. I was brave for them. Convinced that if they could do it, then so could I. Beneath my feet was only slime. Some of it white, some of it with texture and with each step I dug my heel into its skin and twisted as if I were killing an insect. I was up and out and the white flowers and any sense of spring they had brought with them, was behind me now.

Crossing the street I was nearly stuck by a car. I jumped out of the way to avoid it and dropped my book in a puddle of rainwater that had been left behind. I picked it up, walked to the curb, wiped it off and read the cover. As I Lay Dying. Before obliviously walking into the rest of my day, I paused to laugh at the image of my lifeless white body, stained gray from the street and rain, turning into a slime as the lonely and overworked trampled and disfigured me.