Rose

Artist: Edna Cabcabin Moran
Link: ecm.myportfolio.com

All was darkness, thick and black. She pulled herself along the soft ground, her eyes straining against the void. But then, yes, just there, a pinpoint of light. She moved towards it, she was beckoned, and as she did she could see it dancing and bobbing, illuminating the thorns and the thickets. Still closer she crept, until in the light she saw it, velvet red, a flower, a rose, a bramble, a bush! The color called to her, so vibrant, so alive, and she reached out her hand, toward the light, toward the rose, but ouch!

Quickly she withdrew her hand and examined it in the prick of light. Her palm, pale in the moon glow, except where her blood pooled crimson red like the rose. It oozed into the cusp of her hand, a dam once solid, now broken, rivers of red, reclaiming their old dried beds, creeping along the folds, the valleys, the creases and crevasses of her palm. She drew her hand up to her face and pressed it hard against her mouth, the metallic taste flooding her senses.

She rolled onto her back and stared into the darkness. She let it envelop her until there was no distinction between the world outside herself, and the world inside herself. Until she was the blackness, and the silence, and the flavor of metal. And then it was over, there was a whisper of movement, and a sliver of light, and she was just herself again.

The light continued to creep across the darkness, a silver crack in the world, growing larger and larger, threatening to envelope all, until suddenly there it was, the mother moon, with its soft round face, smiling down at her. She started to smile back, but her smile was smothered by a sudden revelation, because there, creeping across that perfectly craggy moon face was a single tear. But how can that be? There is no water on the moon! And then she saw it, illuminated by that silver glow, the roses, there were more now. The moon was taunting her with roses!

She gasped at their beauty, and slowly reached a hand towards them, she knew if she could just touch them, if she could just feel their exquisite petals, their perfect pastoral leaves. But still, just beyond the flowers, the moon continued to smile, that sad smile, and she knew what the moon was waiting for. She knew what the moon wanted. But she also knew better than to smile back at the moon.

She withdrew her hand, pressing it between her back and the soft ground beneath her, and she squeezed her eyes shut. She could create her own darkness, where she could hide and wait for the moon to disappear, where she could wait for the sun to rise again.

Rose’s mother knew it was too late, she had again failed to connect with her daughter. She reached a hand out to caress her face, but then she thought better. She remembered what happened last time. Instead, she raised her hand to her own face, wiped away the tear that betrayed her, and retreated from the dark room to the too bright hall, and the doctor she knew would be waiting to console her.

 

 

Auburn

 

Image credit: Eric C Carter @dizzypixel. Photograph + illustration by hand; no filters.
Like his work? Let him know: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Dizzypixel 

The first time Liza saw the woman was on the day her mother died. Liza had been playing under the willow tree in the front field when a lady with auburn hair that flowed down her back and danced in the wind wandered up the driveway from the dirt road that ran in front of the farm.

Liza sprung to her feet and ran to her house, making sure to stay in the shadows of the orange groves so the woman wouldn’t see her. She burst through the front door and raced up the stairs yelling “Mom!”, but when she entered the cool dark cave of her mother’s bedroom the look in her mother’s eyes caused Liza’s voice to catch in her throat.

“What is it honey?” her mother’s voice barely broke the silence of the room.

“What’s wrong mom?” Liza whispered.

“Nothing, it’s just a headache, don’t worry. Now, what did you need to tell me?”

“There’s a strange lady coming up the drive,” Liza replied as she walked to the curtain to peek outside, but then she thought better of letting any light in the room.

“Okay honey, please have the lady wait on the porch, let her know I will be down in a little while.”

Liza kissed her mother on her very warm cheek, and then went to sit at the kitchen table and wait for the woman. 

And she waited. 

And she waited. 

But the woman never came to the door, and her mother never came downstairs.

The next time Liza saw the woman was at her mother’s funeral. Liza stood at the side of the grave in an itchy black dress. The grass was damp after a week of rain, but the sun had just come out, its rays casting brilliant white spotlights through the trees. One of the rays shone on a figure hovering at the edge of the graveyard, her auburn hair dancing like fire in the sunbeam. But just as quickly she appeared, she was gone, vanished in the teardrops that blurred Liza’s vision. 

The third time she was the woman, Liza was a woman herself, all grown up with a child of her own. Her husband had just gotten a job on the other side of the state, and it just so happened the drive to the new house would take them past the little farm she had lived on as a young girl. Liza was excited about showing her daughter where she had run wild through the fields and orange groves of her childhood.

Liza almost didn’t recognize the place at first. The front field was overgrown with weeds so high she almost couldn’t see the house from the road. She didn’t know what had happened to it after her mother died, but it was obviously long abandoned. They parked the car at the edge of the old dirt road, and as Liza’s daughter ran across the overgrown field toward the weeping willow, Liza strolled up the driveway, watching the shadow of her hair on the driveway, dancing in the breeze.

She turned and waited for her husband to catch up, and when he did she grabbed his hand and said "honey, I'd like to visit my mother's grave."