15 March 2009

Frail Blossoms

By Sheridan Barber

You told me once; when the cherry blossoms were carpeting the grass and the air was cool and crisp, that our memory is at once both our most hated gift and our most treasured curse. I didn’t understand of course. How could I? I was but a child. Even when I was physically grown, you still treated me like a child. So I just smiled vaguely in return, my mind already distracted by the sight of the blossoms falling slowly around me.

It was the curse of the youngest, I suppose . The youngest of five. I lived a life of luxury, protected by four walls and four people. I was always ill, but I always had you to take care of me. It was because you loved me, you always said. But I knew better. It was a duty. Your duty to me as the youngest.

How I had loathed those words. Those obvious lies. You tried to hide it, but I always knew how much it bothered you. Always having to care for me, always treating me like a fragile flower. A delicate blossom that grasped frailly to its stem in a harsh breeze.

The others moved on, married, and began families of their own. Instead, you stayed with me. You were my father, and my mother. You were my oldest brother, and my world.

And it cost you everything.

As I grew, so too did the expenses. I grew sicker, the medicine grew more expensive, and the walls grew smaller. Our house was bare, my brother, but still you cared for me. I wanted to believe you loved me, even as I saw what I was costing you.

By then, the cherry blossoms were a distant memory, a reminder of a time of contentment. I missed the crisp wind on my face, the soft snow in my hair. The walls that once protected me now stifled me with their very existence.

It was at that time that I understood what you had meant so long ago. For whilst I clung to my memories of flowers and freedom, the longing was killing me inside, faster than a simple illness could ever hope to accomplish. Perhaps if I had never seen the winter, never before seen the soft pink blossoms, then I would never have yearned so dearly to see them once more. But it was the memory from which I derived my strength; it was for that eventual freedom from which I clung so tightly to my stem.

You understand brother, do you not? I know you tried; the small sprigs of flowers you placed beside my mattress every day could attest to that. Alas, I wished not to be the blossom that held on for too long. The blossom that withered on its stem because it feared to take the chance to fly.

As I grew more unwell, it became harder for me to move. But I still tried more than once to escape the hell of my confines. You were always there to stop me, to carry me back to my prison. I know you meant well.

But even you, you who would always be there for me, day and night, week and month, could not stay forever. I do not know where you went, but I knew you would return soon. You could not leave me for long. It scared you, I think, that I would disappear while you were gone. That you would return to an empty home; cold and lonely.

But I didn’t want to wither away in that place, not even for you. I had to see it again brother. I needed to let go while I still could.

It was hard for me at first, until the agonising pain that tore through my body was overwhelmed by my determination. The distance was not that far really, and yet it took an eternity. My steps were slow, shuffling, stopping frequently to accommodate the wracking coughs that dominated my emaciated body. But it was worth it in the end, when the shabby wooden door opened before me.

I had timed my outing well, of course, the time of year when cherry blossoms and snow mingled with each other as they both fell slowly towards the ground. When pale pink and white splashed across the ground, coating the grass in a display of frailty.

And yet I could see none of this. My bare toes felt the icy snow beneath them, and my body recognised the sudden chill accompanying the harsh wind that seemed to welcome me home. But my eyes saw only the powerful light of sun that had blinded them, used to the dark as they were.

But even without my eyes, I still wished for the soft blossoms. A few steps more, closer to where I knew my goal would be, and I stumbled, my body overcome by the sudden change in climate. I could do nothing but lay on my back, waiting for you to find me, to take me back to the safety of the four walls.

I sensed a tear slide down my face, frozen quickly by the chilled air. There was an emotion I felt, laying there; snow cushioning my back and wind tugging at my hair. A nameless emotion that one feels after striving so desperately towards a goal, only to fall short. An emotion that tells you to sleep, to give up, to let your dreams be swept away from you.

But even as I cried, sightless eyes staring towards the heavens, I felt it on my cheek, the soft, velvety sensation I had come to know so well from my memories. It was a cherry blossom caressing my face; small and fragile, just like me.

The cold had numbed my body, but still I managed to raise a hand to touch it gently, to be sure it was real. And I knew more than ever that this was my fate, to lay here forever with the snow and flowers, lost within the memories they brought.

I hardly even heard you as you ran towards me, hardly felt your arms around me, your warm lips on my forehead. I didn’t even notice as your tears mingled with mine, when you realised that I was not coming back, not again.

I knew you were there brother. You are always there with me. Even though I could not feel you, even though I could not thank you, I knew.

Even the blossom that had finally finished its descent could feel the wind that had guided and protected it.

It was just like the memory; the two of us in the snow, surrounded by wind and flower petals.

But now the memory was eternal.