The beginning of a short story, or a novel? Or maybe it's jus going to just stay like this? I'd like the story to figure itself.
Bloom
What is happiness? Is it to smile? Is it to breathe? Is it to sing?
Who is to deem we are happy? Where is the end of this seam?
Come, come, dance with me, and we’ll forget about ideas of being free
or living until eternity.
We’ll live in this moment, just you and me.
mary
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And she said “Bloom, bloom my darling, bloom” and she was gone.
I am kneeling on the ground looking at the new buds on the ground. Tiny sprouts, one two, three, four, five. I am poking at the little pieces of grass, small. The ground is damp and dark, packed from the pounding of the rain. Mud rolled in balls from the tittering and tattering and the crunchy leaves, six, seven, eight, nine, pouting their last defeat in their rattle and final let go into a mushy slush.
The sun has turned the tiny leaves into sparkling hands yielding their sparkling diamonds of dew. The brightest ray’s only landing into the corner of my eyes. Chase! I try to catch that ray which moves around the garden, turning everything into light. These are clouds of pure white, the white that every other white tries to mock, the white of clean shoe strings, the white of purity. Lying on my back upon the damp earth, looking up the heavens and above, I point and stare in disbelief the animals, ten, moving and changing before my eyes.
It’s beautiful. This is beauty.
Will you believe me? I dance around the center of the universe, this unique sunshine falling into the middle of my play ground, a simple unkempt back yard. Skipping in what is a circle in this degree, a circle, a never ending path, where is the end? I’m in front of you, I’m always in front, or are you always behind? What, you’re in front? No, I am in front because I’ll show you the beauty. Look at the leaves of ivy, follow me. No? Alright, let’s dance then; let’s dance in this circle, this circle of happiness. Hair flying in the air, hold my hand, it won’t be over soon, we could go on forever.
In circles we ran, and in circles we thought, and in circles everything was connected.
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A young girl, her name was Bloom. Her eyes the color of winter, her hair the flow of spring, her face the color of summer always, and her voice was the tremor of fall. She sang about things she did not know, about a lost love and all in a splendid tone.
She lived with her grandmother. Her parents were too busy to take her in. Her grandmother lived in an old brick home with ivy growing all over it. She always spoke in a bubbly tone and gave a smile to anything. So the first time Bloom broke a cup, her grandmother chuckled for an hour until it seemed that the whole world was laughing and the cup was fixing itself slowly in such an amount of happiness and humor, and to prove that indeed its own brokenness was a pure joke.
She dreamt she was a princess and made a ring of flowers for her crown. Leaves paved the pathway of her arrival to a kingdom and a bouquet of hydrangea to hand to the queen. She threw yellow flower petals in the air representing the snow and sunshine mixture. And she smiled knowing her prince was on the other side. The castle was right behind the walls, she knew. It had a moat and a horse stable. And when the prince met her, he would take her riding in the forest nearby where they could climb a tree and talk about simple things like how to kill a squirrel. Of course they would never kill one because squirrels are the closest friends they had along with the birds who would sing songs about their happiness and such.
The prince would have a great name that she could change anytime. He would have a name that could be called clearly and said with a long sigh, a name that would ring in the valleys and mountains. And he would have a way with smiling that brought light into the heavens.
She drew diagrams on the dirt with a stick to show how she would walk in a courtly manner and meet the gentleman. She spent hours in the study reading about the ways a lady would pose herself in a court and the proper address for the king and when she should curtsy or if she was expected the bow. And she would almost always fall asleep on top a pile of these books dreaming away how this life would take her away. The flowers of her dreams becoming almost so real sometimes sunlight would peep in from a small window right on her book to tell her she’s not alone, she’s got the help of the world.
Her grandmother would always pick her up from the study softly and lay her in her bed. She would pick up the books and smile at the wonderment these stories must bring to the little princess of her life. These books were the same books she had read. The mystery of love, she remembered, was very special to her and she had specified she would solve it, and she did. It will not long before we all do. As she slowly lifted the books back to the shelves she left one novel out on the table. It was a book without a cover. Just a story of simple love and a love found.
After a week of running around and discovering every little crack to realize and touch and once again, as with every week, trying to poke out the most loveliest rock from the ground, her parents came for a visit. It was always just a visit, temporary and short noticed. Words were exchanged in the most proper manner and whispers transferred between each parent. They were like doctor visits, something strictly mandatory and nothing else. Once it was over it was to be forgotten, except a record was always kept in the mind without the consent of anyone.
“Hello, Bloom, how are you my dear?” said mother in a quiet tone. They were in the living room, the only room they stayed in the whole visit. She was looking at a painting on the wall, which was of her father.
“I am fine mother, where father?” Bloom replied in a monotone.
“He’s not here.”
“I can see that, mother.”
“Do not reply to me like that. We can all see it. You do not respect me. After all I do for this family.” Mother replied with her eyes tearing up, she looked up the ceiling to stay strong and not cry.
“Now, now, maybe you ought to leave now Augustine and bring Henry back with you, alright?” Grandmother softly patted mother’s back and signaled with her eyes for Bloom to escape quick while her mother was looking into her lap for something to help her.
Bloom slid off her chair and ran quickly to the doorway behind her. And she would run for another long time, trying to erase the thoughts of her mind.
“You know, Bloom was only being…”
“You always side with her, every time, just because you live with her you think you know her more, you think you she loves you more!”
“Augustine, dear, you know you are all my daughters, you know I love you and because of that I love her.”
“Bloom does not care about me, we can not even talk”
“Maybe some things have to change first, my dear. She’s getting older everyday. You should take some time off and…”
“and be with her, you always say that, then what? What about the money, you know that Henry is not here anymore.”
“Maybe you should tell her the truth.”
“The truth? I can hardly stand the truth myself. I can’t!”
“Don’t cry, things will get better”
“You always tell me that, but it never does!”
“Darling, listen to yourself.”
“I’m leaving, don’t talk to me, I’m leaving.”
“And then what? You’re going to have to come back and figure this out!”
By then Augustine was already halfway down the driveway with her keys out ready to drive away. Maybe if she was not in such a rush she would not have driven into another car at the intersection a mile from this home. Maybe if she was in a better mood she would have put on her seat belt and cared about her life. But for this moment she did not care, she was going to prove the world wrong; she was going to show that Bloom did love her more than anything, and that her grandmother was just another someone. She was going to show the world!
She only showed the world how much sadness there is, and if you do not pick yourself back up, no one will.
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Fly away.
Fly away, some princesses would fly away with their princes and live forever in happiness. Some princesses had fairy grandmothers. Either way they always went away somewhere far away and were forever happy. Implying they were not quite happy before, or less happy because this new happiness beats it by ten fold. And they were in such unhappiness before to be able to let go of all the sadness or happiness of that past life. Does that make sense? It did to Bloom. She was unhappy, unhappy, unhappy. And even though she had her grandmother who was wonderful and very nice to her, she figured there must be another world to discover outside these palace walls. She was running in a circle, a circle, a circle. That is when the phone rang. The phone hardly rang in the mansion, only a few times it did and it was her mother wishing Bloom a happy birthday and instructions to go out and buy a gift for herself with her grandmother. But she never called right after she visited. This only made the ring louder than it already was. The piercing tone cut through her head and she fell to the middle of her imaginary circle and sat down.
She listened quietly through the window, and even the smallest amount of wind before fell silent. But all she could hear was the same silence that engulfed the building unless she filled it was dreams and smiles and whispers into the air, hoping it would travel over the wall into the ears of her prince. After a long time of anticipation and fear Bloom stood up and was about to resume her frolicking when her grandmother stepped out of the backdoor in her small steps with sparkling tears in her eyes. The sun was playing on her face, filtered by the leaves of the afternoon summer sun. And for a second it looked as if her grandmother was an angel ready to fly away.
“Bloom, my darling, come here for a moment.” Bloom walked over in a slow prance. The backyard was large and she was in the middle. She looked into the eyes of her grandmother and saw that the diamonds in her eyes were not of a hidden surprise or happiness, it was the most beautiful sadness she had ever seen, a sadness of the ocean, a sadness that shattered the world. She could hear the silence holding back the choking and breathlessness in the throat of crying and wailing. She heard her swallow the air with much effort and the she saw the slight wrinkles of this effort and she wanted to save her grandmother. But she could not figure what to do. Her grandmother had always been full of smiles, and now even that, the most reliable thing of her childhood, had broken. She looked down to the early buds of the grass on the ground, and tried to count each blade as she approached her grandmother. She counted as if there was nothing wrong and that everything would be alright, she counted in hope until the tears from her eyes made everything disappear and only the elements of vision were left, color and slight form.
“Bloom, bloom, others had loved you well before I did, and others had giving their life up to keep you alive and beautiful. They wanted the best. I am the only one that loves you now.” Her grandmother looked away to the large maple tree on the left and she remembered Bloom’s birth, how they had a party here with all of the family and close friends. They had a grand time and she was able to cook for everyone. There was a dance and she remembered Augustine in her best attire and Henry in his best suit, dancing together to the clink of wine glasses and the color of festive lights. “Now, I am the last one left to love you. Do no worry I will not be the last. I will never be the last. You understand darling?” She looked down at Bloom who was still looking downward until this moment in which their eyes met. “I love you.”
“Grandmother, why are you telling me this?” Her purity of look and salt crystals on her cheek only made her grandmother fall deep into sadness and fear. “I always knew you loved me. I know father loved me and mother as well. Of course you’re the only one left because mother left and father too.” And she went up to her grandmother, gave her the strongest hug she could for her size and ran away to the other side of the garden to play with the lights under a Japanese maple tree.
Slowly inside, Bloom was trying to escape the world further in a matter of just a few strides she was back on track to playing with her imaginary circle.
Her grandmother could only watch in awe the simple letting go of her granddaughter, and this would be what kept her alive until her death. She stood for awhile and watched over her dear and then walked back into the house to sort the mess out from what had just happen and clear the table for dinner.
No one went to Augustine’s funeral except the grandmother. She did not bring Bloom because she was not sure if Augustine had understood clearly. She also believed that at such a young age, a child should not have to experience death. She was not sure if this was the right choice, but for this moment it seemed necessary.
There should never be a fear of death, but in this case, no one knows what is more necessary, truth or happiness? If the truth is shown, maybe Bloom will not find the worth in it, but instead use it as a reason for everything misfortunate in her life. But if the truth is not shown, she will know it in the end. Maybe she already knew the truth. No one knows. Maybe we could and ask her, but how could we? Ignorance is only temporary bliss. Then the truth comes out and the pain is twice as worse, the thoughts of what could have been come into play and the voice keep echoing about chances lost, a different course of life never taken. Would one have chosen that other course? It does not matter; one was not even allowed to choose it and the pain continues.
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For the next two months Bloom did as she may. Every week she went to church with her grandmother….
To be continued when the moment comes.
mary
