“I’ve lost it,” I murmur, unsettled by my lapse in attention. To make sure, I empty my bag’s contents onto the table, then lean down to check beneath the counter, thinking maybe I’d forgotten I’d taken it out. Among colorful ribbons, crepe paper, cellophane, and rice paper lies a space precisely large enough to hold the proud and prejudiced life of a Mr. Darcy and a Miss Bennet, its yellowed pages well-worn.
“Did I forget something?” Andy’s awkward voice drifts to me from the space just beyond my shoulder, startling me into lifting my face toward him, half-hidden behind the doorframe marked “Staff Only.”
“You scared me… I thought you’d left ages ago.”
“I stayed to put the tools back. The sheets, the cords, I put the shears back in their place—” he starts counting on his fingertips with a look of overly serious concentration— “Last time, you complained that I’d used up all the paper clips without restocking, remember?”
“Oh yes, I did complain.” I admit with a sigh, resting my elbows on the counter. Now that I know my favorite book isn’t within reach, it hardly matters if the workspace is in order or fully stocked. Half the time, I’m just going to wander aimlessly around the shop anyway, like every day, and as usual, I’d much rather sink into my favorite novel, savoring the small joys it offers me, rather than lose track of the minutes waiting for some repentant husband to decide to buy a bouquet of roses for his wife. When it does happen, I regain a bit of vitality, only to slip back into boredom the moment he says “Thank you, goodbye.”
The clock strikes eight on the one hundred and thirty-seventh minute. One hundred and thirty-seven minutes of silence. My nose burns from the scent of fifty flowers of various kinds, without even a single, old-fashioned romantic line to distract me from it.
I conclude that the only place I could’ve left it is on the secluded bench, the last place I was reading it, just a few hours before work. My secret garden.
It’s not large, nor well-known, and I hesitate to even call it a park, but in this forgotten green space, the wild grass hides enchanting patches where the sun each day illuminates a new bud, and a gentle magic permeates the air, dyeing it with the colors of flowers. Breaking this illusion of untouched nature is a small bench, surrounded by birch trees, hidden beyond an endless field, far from prying eyes. My morning paradise.
I walk down the bare, straight path that runs along the park, battling the peanut butter that’s clinging to my palate. In my hand, I hold the rest of the breakfast responsible, and under my arm, my purse. I haven’t brought another book, hoping my beloved masterpiece is still where I left it. After all, who would ever steal a book? I mean, I certainly would, but in these matters, I’m hardly a standard. My daily mantra is that “books left unattended have lost the allure they once had,” and whether that’s true or not, it doesn’t matter as long as it helps me keep pessimism in check.
The ground is dry, it hasn’t rained overnight, and my secluded bench is only a few meters away. All it takes is one last turn to see it and breathe a sigh of relief. Right in the center, lying parallel to the wooden planks, is a familiar book, undisturbed with a flowering branch laid upon its cover. Shades of purple and blue adorn it with yellow eyes at the center, and an instant smile full of amazement and wonder spreads across my lips.
“Forget me not,” it says, without moving its lips. Little wildflowers placed on top by a passerby, leaving a message for its absent-minded owner. I approach, intrigued, picking up both the branch and the book. If this isn’t old-fashioned romance, I don’t know what is.
I sit on the mossy bench and resume reading from where I’d left off. The lines “With this invitation, Mr. Collins’s triumph was complete” and “I only wish to add: God bless her” mark the beginning and end of my morning paradise. It’s half-past twelve when I finish reading the letter Mr. Darcy took the time to write and hand-deliver to Miss Elizabeth Bennet, and the industrial dose of sentimentality I just stocked up on should help me endure the hours of solitude and silence ahead.
Before heading down the straight path once more, I take the opportunity to partake in a game of rare originality, and after getting lost in the multitude of flowers in the endless field, I leave a long green stem with yellow buds on the bench. The agrimony will thank the stranger for me.
The rest of the day goes by faster than I expected. The reading keeps me company, and unlike yesterday, the silence isn’t loud at all. My mind returns repeatedly to the stranger with the flowering branch. The coincidence is too great for him not to have known the meaning of the flowers, yet so few people know floriography these days that finding one who does seems impossible… I fall asleep wondering if I’ll find a response to my thanks tomorrow, on the secluded bench. And I do.
“I admire you, I like you,” says the flower, its stem tucked between the wooden slats. Pale pink petals leave no room for doubt. That the rose symbolizes love is a myth to dispel. Just a hint of different color makes all the difference, and the proof is in the flower adorning my morning bench. I smile, inhale its fragrant petals, and finally sit down, as I do every day. I read until it’s time to head to work, and before I go, I leave a white violet in my place. Modesty, or colloquially, “What are you saying? You flatter me!” I chuckle at the thought and keep smiling as I stand behind the work counter.
“I see we’re in good spirits today.” Andy enters through the main door with his hands behind his back and a suspicious smile.
“I could say the same for you… what are you hiding back there?” I ask, curious. The corners of his mouth twitch, and without further prompting, he reveals a lopsided oval wrapped in aluminum foil: “For you.”
A bit wary, I reach for the mystery object and cautiously begin unwrapping it. The foil reveals a slice of cake, and my face immediately contorts into a look of remorse: “Oh, Andy! Was that today?” Without waiting for a reply, I step around the counter and throw my arms around him, “Happy Birthday!”
He just laughs awkwardly, returning my embrace. After a few moments of silence, he clears his throat, “You know, if you wanted to give me a gift, you could join us for the little gathering tonight. It’s nothing much, really… you can even say no.” His arms gently push me back, ending the hug, but I’m already shaking my head firmly. Of course I’ll go; in fact, as gifts go, it seems rather modest, but if this is what he wants, then this is what he’ll get.
Strangely, I don’t read this afternoon; instead, I chat with Andy about anything and everything. At eight o’clock, we head to a bar near the shop, where we’re soon joined by a few close friends. Andy was right: the little gathering is nothing special, but when my head hits the pillow again, I’m tired, slightly tipsy, and happy, and for the first time in days, I’m not thinking about the stranger with the flowering branch.
My thoughts return to him only in the morning, as I near the secluded bench. With each step, my curiosity grows, so much so that I think I might be walking faster just to see what flower awaits me. My impatience amuses me, and when I finally reach my secret paradise, a rose awaits me. My steps falter, and what was a smile becomes a straight line of confusion.
Not all roses symbolize love. Just a shade can entirely change its meaning, and a yellow rose like the one resting on my bench can only mean one thing. Jealousy.
It makes no sense; it doesn’t respond to my white violet; it doesn’t pick up on the conversation we’d started. So what’s it supposed to mean?
A cold, hot shiver runs down my spine, leaving a trail of uneven heartbeats. I decide not to read today, nor respond to the yellow rose. My instinct tells me I won’t shake the strange feeling all day, and it’s right.
I consider not going to the secluded bench tomorrow, and I close my eyes, determined to listen to myself, but my curiosity is starving for answers, and my legs move on their own. The yellow rose will probably still be there. The stranger with the flowering branch likely won’t have left me more flowers, given my lack of response. It was probably just a harmless prank… but in my calculation of probabilities, I hadn’t considered the tiny possibility that I might find a second response. Two flowers.
“You’re cold and heartless,” says the showy hydrangea. “And yet I think of you and watch you always,” continues the begonia lying next to it. Beyond their meanings, I sense a threatening undertone, like an insistent “you owe me an answer.”
I’m frozen, shocked. My peripheral vision sharpens, and with trembling hands, I reach out to the two flowers, barely brushing their colorful petals. How can such beautiful things carry such a dark message? I stop short of gripping their stems, pulling back as though I’d been burned.
I want so badly to run, to retrace my steps and head to work, but doing so would give the stranger exactly what he wants: confirmation of the effect his games are having on me, on my mornings, and my pride refuses to hand him this power.
I take a deep breath and finally sit on the mossy bench. I read the same sentence ten times before giving up, waiting patiently for twelve-thirty to arrive before I get up and walk down the barren avenue. I ignore the urge to run and get out of the park as quickly as possible, forcing myself to walk even slower than usual. Like a self-imposed torture, I deny my instinct and contradict all my fears. He’s not watching you, he’s not following you, he’s never seen you, and you’ve never seen him.
With these words in mind, I take refuge in the flower shop, too on edge to appear casual. Andy notices something is wrong, but I ignore all his questions, and at eight in the evening, I finally do what I’ve been longing to do all day: I lock myself inside my house and bar the windows. I’ve become paranoid.
The next day, I don’t go to the isolated bench and stay in bed as long as I can. I do the same the following day and the day after that. I haven’t received any flowers, nor have I seen the same passerby twice. I haven’t been followed home or anywhere else, and little by little, one day at a time, my life seems to return to normal, so much so that, now free of any fear, I decide to resume my routine. Today, I’m heading to the isolated bench.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous, but I hide it as best as I can, one foot in front of the other, humming a random song, as if it were any other day.
I smile at the sky, I smile at the sun, I smile at the grass, and I smile at myself, but when I reach the bench, I can’t find the strength to smile anymore.
The wooden slats are hidden under a thick layer of dried blood beneath fresh blood. Thorny blood that drips endlessly for a week, oozing a new red drop every day.
The idea that the rose is the flower of love should have been debunked, I’ve said it over and over, but if its petals are scarlet, light to dark, the meaning doesn’t change. It means love, desire, passion, but it also means anger, resentment, fury.
Fury like the one that drives me to press my palms into the thorns, to tear away the dried petals and the still-soft ones, to truly bleed, pricking myself with a thousand natural needles, still green, that sink into my flesh like nails. I gasp, choking on saliva and coughing, crying out of rage and fear. I don’t stop until the mossy bench is once again clear, clean, untouched.
My heart pounds in my chest like it’s gone mad. I inhale deeply to steady my breathing, exhaling slowly once or twice, as the adrenaline fades and a paralyzing calm spreads under my skin. That’s when I see it.
The morning sun stretches the shadows. Mine, the bench’s, the flowers scattered on the ground, and that of a man, behind me. Arms raised, hands clasped, and between them, long
and massive, a mysterious object that draws closer and closer. I have time to admire the flowers one more time and to feel lightheaded before everything goes black, and I feel nothing at all.