Category: Writers Block
The Flower Vender
The scent is cloying. It is an assault upon all that I am. It seems to spring from hope, aspiration and the golden sunlight which gives it the impetus to exist. It is dragged into my nostrils and they rebel, refusing to inhale the unadulterated Oder of pure promise and delight. It is a chimera, a Madeleine and still I pass by, calling out to that scent. How dare it command me?
The flower vender is a cheerful man. I often wonder if he too is in love. I hope that he is, for otherwise his business would plague him like a swarm of locusts. A young man glances at the displays, his face lit from within by a fire so pure; it can only be felt once in a lifetime. I want to go up to this young man. I want to tell him that the flowers lie. I want to force him to see the dyeing petals and withering stems that lay beneath the soil. But I do not. He would not hear me. His soul is burning.
I wonder if the flower vender sees these young people. I wonder if he wishes that he could join them. Does he smile with every purchase, hoping, preying and begging an uncaring God that the flowers he sells serve to fan a flame in others which he himself can no longer feel? Does he wish them luck or despise that which they so blithely wear upon their sleeves, like a badge of honor.
I wonder how many bushes have died in this place – sacrificed on the alter of love. How ironic, that love and death join hands on this cosmic dance floor, forever bound together in a cycle of pain and hope, pain and hope, pain and hope. I wonder how many of these bushes have sacrificed themselves in vein. For flowers are as love. They are fleeting, beautiful, deadly – but finite.
I walk past the flower vender’s stall and I do not look up. The scent of the flowers no longer calls to me. I have discovered its mendacity. It is forever tainted. As I cross the street I think I hear a voice. From his stall, the man looks up and says three simple words. “Understanding is hell.”
{Pretty good, a bit of a sad ending there. I agree with the last three words, true, true.