Sand Flowers

The bell tinkled and tinkled while the mumblings were quite vexatious for my ears. I
looked down at my new pair of shoes for a little distraction. What I was doing there? What on
earth I was doing in that place at 8 a.m when I was supposed to be at the office? That smell,
those colours were outrageous because my coffee was waiting for me somewhere down the
street at a not-so-known shop.

”Aren’t they lovely?” my eyes caught those waxed and tiny blue petals. Actually they weren’t,
but I said nothing in front of the shop-lady. Maybe in another circumstances they would have
been, mhm. In some circumstances , some beautiful ones are those where she didn’t exist.
She, the one without I am finally myself. She likes those flowers. If it wasn’t her I wouldn’t
have known such a weird name like Hepatica nobilis. Everyone likes roses, lilies, daisies,
tulips, but she, for God sake, she likes Hepatica nobilis!

I sneezed without intention on those hepa- whatever and bite my lips with irritation. They are
even elegant as her, that’s why I simply hate them. Just like her.

Our damn relationship was odd from the beginning. A slightly overview of our meeting for
example: she pushed me down on her way to the bus. She was careless during our whole
relationship or thing, I don’t know how should I call it anymore. And after she had pushed me
down she mumbled that it was my fault. My fault?! She was wearing sunglasses during a
cloudy day. In that time I was looking for one of her friend but unfortunately I fall for her. I
fall for her after she made me fall literally. What I was thinking? Nothing. Ok, maybe it was
just a short lovely time for the two of us, but it didn’t last. Even our love was an astral
projection of a person suffering of Cotard syndrome. We kept that corpse between us.
Welcome, love, you’re burried now. She was playing love all the time during the most
important moments. She went with Ava at the mall while I was sick in our bed. With Ava!
Only me was thinking at us, at her. I bought her those stupid flowers at every anniversary and
every special occasion because she’s completly fool for them. And now, on this day of April
3, Ava must buy you a giant bouquet of trashly Hepatica, Codaline, because it isn’t our
anniversary anymore!

You drained all of my inspiration; as a result all of my paintings are like ostriches on a beach.
You ruined my memories with your figure in my favourite exotic places that I’ve ever visited.
In those memories I only feel your warm around my body, I smell your scent in my hair and
adore your touch on my wrist.

” No, they aren’t fucking lovely, dear”, Saleswoman starred at me like I was insane and I
stepped out the flowershop.

I can’t even dream of how beautiful my life could be now.

Dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. The furniture is flaming in the rays
of the sun. Oh, beautiful August! The smell of antique wood burnt Ashes resembles of my
great-grandaunt. She liked to wear crinoline dresses, undoubtedly out of fashion, and call
herself a madame. Back in her days, she have been raised in a pension where she learnt
French, Italian and a bit of Sicilian, she have learnt to behave and have been taught to love no
man.

I am swinging in her old armchair embroidered with beautiful roses and tulips; my feet cannot
touch the ground whereas the only steps are taken by my big Persian cat, Thalia. Fierceness
never had such beautiful topazish eyes, as blue as a thirsty man sees an illusion of the sea in
such Dryness of a desert. Oh, sweet urge, yet so desolate. Thalia keeps pushing my
ankle with her soggy nose in an almost despair. Sensing she needed to climb as she usually
does in our Mango tree, I opened for her the window of my dressing room. With the windows
wide open, I took a deep breath, since I do not remember when it was the last time I breathed
anything else than Sand and Gravel.

I used to drink my coffee every morning in our verandah and you were singing passionately
“Kiss me” by Sixpence none the richer. Now I am drinking all my mornings in order to make
everything seem less barren since you have gone. Hailey, I loved you all along, from head to
toe. I felt every mark you’ve drawn with your pencil on your father’s map, as if you were
drawing on my raw chest. You were making up plans for our fanciful trips in Europe. I kissed
you in Spanish, in Danish, in Lithuanian and planned to marry you in Moroccan. Day after
day you kept pushing me far away, you stopped painting claiming that I was consuming your
vitality. I guess I remained the one who’s love needed to be consumed, the one who wished
for a burn, a sublime burst on the Caspic Sea shore. I needed to be forgiven, your eyelashes
over my cheeks. In my hard times I wished you’d caress my tears until they would gone dry.
Hailey, I would have loved you more than I do now. Where could you be? Hiding and
sneaking like a stray cat on Toscana streets but my arms.

I am the great-granddaughter of my great-grandaunt and I loved no man. I am reading the

book she gave me for my 31th birthday, my fingers are sliding through the dust of my piano. I
wished she have stayed a bit more. I do not feel any resentment nor grudge.. Perhaps someone
is caring well after her, perhaps now she drinks peach tea with three cubs of sugar. I am sorry
I always made it bitter..

Meantime I was contemplating with compassion for both of us, my doorbell rang. I was sure
Martha came again rescuing Thalia from her German Shepherd teeth. It would be the 4th time
this month. Huge, long, lively, soft purple petals and green strains formed a fructuous bouquet
of hepatica, flowers which have been left on the stairs minutes ago, judging by the beautiful
fresh smell of raised dust.

a. Junot Diaz b. Lorrie Moore c. Donald Antrim