Nothing at All // A Conversation About Flowers
Nothing at All
In the Carolinas, by the Atlantic, there is a house two stories tall and about as wide which contains a mother, a father, a daughter, and a dog. The daughter, standing on the top step of the only staircase, feels a tug at her shorts and a silky hand slipping between cotton and skin to fiddle with her front. She startles, as with every night, though yet to fall, and turns, only for the touch to vanish.
The room to the right of the stairs is her parents', and in it she searches, slowly, as she and her apparition are predators of one another. The window is left open, and curtains draw close with an effortful tug. Its closing puts her back to the bed - a frightful idea, for beneath which is where monsters sleep when not lurking the Night - and so she spins around.
To sight a monster is as terrible a curse as to not, and so she flicks on an overhead light and does not check under the bed. Now it is Day inside and Night out, and whichever apparition groped her so boldly would be duty-bound to depart.
Satisfied, she returns to the top of the stairs, where she feels a finger slip beneath her waistband. Too late, she spins half around, the other half in fear of what she may find, and spots Nothing. A step away from where the monster ought to be and she slips, her ankles bouncing and sliding on wood like apples on a hill, and she finds rest.
Her head, like a watermelon, breaks. Her waist is twisted around like a banana, the peel rent and revealing, and Nothing dines on that flesh.
A Conversation About Flowers
There is a garden in the west of India that is connected to a house, in which lives a tall, brown dog. Its owners grow flowers of many varieties and uses, and to save their livelihood from plant poachers and runaway lovers, the whole compound of garden and home is bracketed with a low, stone wall. The climb over said wall is discouraged by a row of glass shards.
Nevertheless, on a Wednesday morning, following breakfast, a peacock is spotted in the garden, picking flowers of purple in its beak. The dog, a fierce and loyal protector of the house's borders, shouts.
"Ye there, out! Ye are not of this land and have no right to its crops!"
The peacock ignores the mangly creature and plucks another flower before stepping off.
The next morning, the same. The peacock takes small flowers of cloudless blue, holds them dutifully in its prim beak, and walks off as the dog speaks of its incredulity.
On Friday, the peacock returns, and the dog, fed up with its blatant theft, bares its teeth.
"Ye there, leave or die," says the dog, "for with my fangs I will rip your long neck from your body and water this garden with the spray."
The peacock stares. "What violence is this? I am simply picking flowers for my beloved. Is love such a crime to your lonely soul?"
"Does your love justify you in theft? These are not your flowers to pick."
"Are they not? They dance here so beautifully under our shared sun, I thought to myself, I must bring them to her."
The dog, at this moment, becomes rather cross, and having not achieved the outcome it intended for, bares its teeth again.
"Have you left the wall of stone and glass unnoticed?" says it, "Moreover, have you not heard my barks before? Only when I threaten death have you had the grace to pause in your crimes."
The peacock steps closer to both guard and garden.
"A wall is of little consequence to myself, a noble bird."
The two creatures lock eyes and wait. When the dog bares its fangs again, the thief raises itself up and spreads its tail, a resplendant mosaic of blues and greens depicting the founding of the Earth, adorned with bells and tassels of gold. In a moment, the dog's senses shift into focus as if it had all been, until now, entirely within a dream. The peacock's legs were not dry and spindly, but four in number and furred like a lion. Around its neck has always been a mane of gold, and its eyes, once thought to be dark, round, and fearful, appear instead pointed and knowing, like those of one's owners. It unhinges its beak to an unnatural extent to reveal a nest of fangs and tongues, and from that terrible throat it speaks.
"It is I, Ares, god of war, and I am here collecting flowers for my beloved. Bite me if you wish, and the flowers I deliver to her will be red and glittering with the remains of your petty heart. She cares only for the prettiest of things. Be honored that the portion of this Earth for which you care, I rank among them. Suffer me this, dog, and obey your master."
Every day thereafter, the peacock visits in the morning and plucks a flower, until the last is stolen and its sightings cease. The dog curls on the stones by the garden, tucks its tail between its legs, and turns away to weep.
Song of the Post and Other Notes
No Good by Asal (she's so hot guys help). Unrelated, these are drafts that I wrote this morning. I'll revise them now and again, but my goal is just to get some prose down on the emotions I struggle with and move on to other matters.
Can you tell I've been reading old British books?