A Flower, But What Kind?

"Me, get down to you? Interesting," her father scoffed, "who do you think you are? Which sphere of influence do you come from: Authority? Family? Love? Your words do not carry the same weight as mine."

"What about you? I would love to know how you rationalize your actions," I asked with a cold voice.

He replied with equal temperature. "She is my daughter, her life is thanks to me. What I do with her is thus also up to me."

He then harrumphed. It was like a period mark that set the end of a sentence, he ended the conversation.

"So he says, do you think so too?" I asked and softly grabbed the top of Rayas head.

The servants small lights flickered around her, the girls small shadows casted on the ground.

As I saw her, I saw a pitiful child— She was like a lone flower resting in a fragile pot surrounded by old, moldy trash. Overgrown and obscured, it grew and grew, and was now deeply rooted in the dirty ground it sprouted from.

"No, I," she squinted her eyes and shook her head.

I held her still, "you what?"

"I don't know!" The flower shook under the gentle breeze.

"You don't know," I repeated, "that is dissapointing."

She grasped her shortened hair, "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, what do you want from me, to lie?"

"Don't pile your frustrations on me, it is him who you should be talking to."

She gripped my dress, "what do you understand," she asked as she stared at me in anger, "what is it that you understand-! You think you can just return after all this time and pretend like you never left," she gritted her teeth and her nose wrinkled as she screamed, "how would you be able to emphasize when you haven't seen what I have been through all these years?"

The flower that could not bear the whine of the wind grew restless.

"What would convince you, do you need money? Courage, or perhaps a kiss?" I said. I couldn't tell if she was blushing, as her face had already been painted with different colors.

In the end, she brushed me aside; but there was, for the first time a long pause in between.

I lifted her chin with my palm as if I lifted a glass of wine. I gave her a disapproving look, but also one filled with love, a maternal one, "you are right. I don't know you."

She whimpered faintly and then closed her eyes. She calmed down, no, she gave up. Again. As Always. Her hands snapped open, her fingers wriggling and stretching, and then returning to a hard fist, and then snapping open once more.

"So I will learn now."

Her eyes opened rapidly and before any sounds left her unclosed mouth, I grabbed her body tenderly, enwrapping it with my own, "there is still time for me to do so, right?"

"What are you talking about?"

With my hands, I combed through her hair, and bundled strands (which hadn't fallen yet due to inexplicable reasons) rained down to the floor.

"Would you open your heart for me, and let me enter?"

"It is too late for that now."

"Let me support you."

"Liar, liar, you will only leave again," she covered her ears and shook her head vehemently.

The flower held the ground and I saw the petals fluttering inside her eyes. It was losing its halt, as if a tornado broke out, violently yanking the foundation the little plant stood on.

I imagined- the twisting winds would flay apart the surrounding trash, taking them on a grand adventure; maybe they floated in the air forever or perhaps they entered a place much unknown to us, but before that happened, the fragile pot would have long broken.

I pulled her arms down, "but this time, you will follow me. Because you are mine."

She stared at me, at a lost for words. There was a queer silence between us and our surroundings turned white.

She balled her hands into a fist and asked timidly, "what do you want me to do?"

"Find the answer yourself." I said with utmost sincerity.

She squeezed out a question, one lodged deep in her heart, "do, d. . . o I have the right?"

"You know, people push a lot but they never arrive anywhere. That doesn't mean the didn't gain anything. From dust to dust, it is what you make of yourself in between which is important. What matters whether you have the right? Such questions are hypocricies, do not act on what others define you as."

She looked away, "I-"

"Search for the answer by your own."

I laid her back on the floor again, she was indignant, almost yearning for us to stay together, but I didn't support her. No, I stood up, waiting for her to do the same.

"Is this the end? I do not like when someone speaks without my permission," her father asked, bored. He had been watching the entire time —his head resting on his fist—, curious on what I was planning.

"It would seem my role is done here."

"That is good. I was wondering if I should say anything. But seeing your little exchange was fun, even if the climax was lackluster," he stared at his daughter, lying still.

"Eh," I shrugged my shoulders, "inspirational speeches aren't part of my repertoire."

He laughed derisively, "you don't need to tell me, I can see that. Everyone here can."

I massaged my temples as I observed him, "do you get off of pretending to be god?"

"What is it that you are implying?"

"Well, let me explain with a short story." I suddenly began narrating, "once in different times, an ox had chanced upon a young frog. The young frog returned to inform his father he saw a monster as great as a mountain. Was it as big as me? Asked the old frog and blew himself out. Much bigger, his son says. And the father blew himself out, and blew himself out. Was he this big? Asked again the old frog with his swelling belly. Much, much bigger, his son says. So his father took a deep breath, straining his body, he blew himself out. Until finally he burst."

I opened my arms wide, pretending to explode, and the unseen crowd snickered behind the light.

His eyes twitched, "quite funny," he said with a deep voice, "what about you then, if that is supposed me, who are you? You stand here alone, with no one to support you. Not even someone as useless as her wants to listen to you."

Alone?

I let my eyes wander around the room and what I saw made me agree with him. Indeed, in this room packed with people, not one stood by my side. And I didn't really need them to. Those small minded people had no use, they were quite frankly, wasted space.

Vera- she had left before I noticed it. I wasn't sure where to, but I could make a guess.

"It is really a shame that you have to resort to excuses. Doesn't it go to show how little you know of what you are doing? Your fragile masculinity etched in your god-complex is a carriage headed to disaster," I gestured a splitted throat.

"Enough! You dare, you dirty bastard?" He threw something in my direction. It landed right in front of me; the darkness hid its shape, but did not stop the metallic sound from entering my ears, "do you wish to die that early?" He looked at me, his face like a blackened sky, "you must think I was just born. You think you can trample over me with no consequences? The temerity you have astounds me. If I don't act today, won't people believe I am a joke, swinging a burlap over my head and beating me to death?"

I clicked my tongue, "are you too stupid to understand? Is this the education you lauded? Bound by your archaic ways, you hate the idea of being wrong- no you seem to have forgotten the word 'wrong' even exists."

"You have the tongue of a snake, I give you that," he turned blank, his corded veins throbbing on his neck, "talking to you only drags me down to your level. I won't engage with you anymore."

"You are a pathetic excuse for a father," I shouted as I pointed a the ground. It was my final declaration.

"Here's a fun thought," he swiped his hands and ignored me, "I know the perfect ending for you. Raya, my dearest," he called her with the endearing pet name, but it only sounded like mockery, "I will forgive the sins you committed," he smiled, a crevasse opening up in the meadow, "but only if you beat this wretched bird right here, right now. There's already a knife, why don't you carve into her, what the word 'education' means? Go on now, as far as you want, just until you are short of killing her."

The girl twitched as she heard her name. There was a dull quietness, as if everyone was anticipating the next move.

She opened her mouth, and then closed them again. Her lips shivered while she tried to control her breath:

"No."

—she managed to squeeze out, and as she did, her face blossomed with relief. It was like getting out of a stuffy sauna, or sleeping in a comfortable bed after a long time. In an instant, she cleared years of pent up frustrations recklessly.

For the first time his eyes widened. "No?" He asked, shocked.

She didn't reply, but her silence was an answer itself.

I laughed out loud, "would you look at that, Not even someone as useless as her wants to listen to you."

Her father grew agitated, "I'm not in the best mood Raya, so do not play these little tricks on me."

She glanced away, as not to meet his gaze. Her eyes fell on a painting which had cracked under its age.

"Raya, do not dare humiliate me in this manner! Get up!"

"I, I. . . won't."

"Pardon me?" Her fathers face crunched together, dumbfounded by her answer. From all she could have said, this was the last thing he expected, "did I hear that right?"

She lay on the ground, covering her eyes with her arms. It was hard to tell what kind of expression she was making in her curled up position.

"Papa, I hate you."

Her fathers eyes seemed to bulge out, as he was greatly confused by the scene unfolding before him.

Raya immediately shied away, but I urged her, "tell your true thoughts, it will be alright."

It was like a command and she reacted, "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, father." The words flowed out of her mouth, "I hate this, it hurts, my cheeks hurt." She gritted her teeth while still hiding behind her arms, heaving, "I hate everyone. This sucks, this is dumb."

A shrieking laughter emerged right from my throat, entering everyone's ears like blackboard scratching. "Marvelous, this, this is the right answer, 'my dearest'."

"I hate you too, Agnes," she interrupted me.

My voice was cut short by her unexpected announcement.

Really, she was slowly turning into her cousin. Was that for the best, I wonder. Eh, well, whatever.

His face turned red, the same red Rayas face was afflicted with.

He looked like he was seconds short off a heart attack, and in those seconds I hoped: yes, give him one, a great one. Like an alien bursting through his chest. That would make it easier on all of us.

"Raya——Raya, you—-"

"No, father. I know what it is that you are going to say. I won't agree. I will never agree anymore," she paused, contemplating really hard on the next lines she should say, "I would rather die, than stay here in solidarity."

The girl, having said what had been on her mind, crunched together, into a tiny ball, like a turtle fending off its adversaries. Her strands of hair surrounded her body, alarming her of any trespassers.

The flower had died.

The pot broke under the fragile stamp of the wind.

But fear not, because her decedent would nurture the ground, pile the soil and from it would spawn new flowers —now untethered by the boiling trash—, much more beautiful than any other.

I touched her head, and she shriveled back from shame. "Rest easy, my small lotus, you have done well. Leave the rest to me."