The girl wandered through the rows of flowers, captivated by their beauty.
Bending down to inspect each one, she stared for hours into the small world that
existed between the petals of every blossom. In her world, everything was big,
much larger than herself, but here in her garden she felt like a giant. Peering
into a flower she could lose herself for hours, curled up in the flute of a
daffodil or exploring the intricacies of a daisy. Nothing was frightening here;
everything was scaled to her own petite size.
The flowers spoke in soft voices, never making loud noises like the denizens
of the world outside. She was the only one sensitive enough to hear what the
flowers said, the only one who would listen to their quiet conversations. They
never complained, for they had nothing to complain about. They were never hungry
– the sun gave them everything they needed. When the girl tried to explain the
feeling she got when her mother couldn’t afford to buy her dinner, the flowers
only murmured in subdued confusion. At first they had told her to lie in the
sun, and she had tried that, but when she had returned home she was still
hungry. The girl wished she could be like the flowers – stationary, in a world
that fit, always content and never hungry.
A car alarm in the street below began to wail as the girl’s mother entered
the room.
"Lisa Marie, git yoself off that floor an come help Mama get dinna made!"
"But Mama, I hava take cara my flowas o they die," the girl replied.
"Well, dinna ain’t gun done make isself. ‘Sides, those ain’t no flowas
that need carin, they jus drawins you did with yo crayons. Can eat nona those
flowas. Now come help Mama make dinna or Mama gun make dinna oudda you!"
"Yes Mama. I be der in uh sec." the girl replied in a reconciled tone.
"You bedda be, cus I be workin’ all DAY to make sho’ yo ass ain’t
starvin’ an I don wanna be doin alla tha cookin too."
The girl’s mother departed from the room, leaving her lying on the floor
between the rows of drawings: lined paper covered in waxy colored scribbles.
After her mother was gone, the girl rose to her feet, picked up the flower she
just finished drawing on a crumpled piece of paper that she had found on the
street, and gracefully moved towards the narrow window that looked out from her
bedroom onto the exhausted city outside. When she reached her destination she
removed from her pocket a small piece of tape that had become covered in lint
between the journey from school to home, and joined her drawing to the
windowpane. After this task had been completed, the girl carefully trotted back
through her garden to the door. As she left the room, light trickled in through
the window over the rows of color, tinted by the sheet of paper the girl had
covered in sunflower yellow crayon.
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