The flower-plucker

What would you call a place like this … ?

Had it been situated on the coast, it would have been considered a lagoon, or perhaps an inlet; here, some kilometres before the water went brackish, it slipped off the riverside into a little secret that wasn’t quite the river itself but instead

something of a cavern, or a cul-de-sac; delineated by a low submerged rise; a dip in the cliffs where, with a rough pileup of branches on a long-fallen maple,

the flow diverted from its southeasterly path to create a warm pool carved into the cliffside, surrounded by embankments, almost-beaches of warm brown mud and silt,

surrounded and haloed by a thriving array of flora, all surrounded and shielded from downward gazes by the ringing cliffside trees, which stood tall and direct, vertically positioned in such a way that let the sunshine in directly when it reached its midday zenith.

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It was his secret, more or less.

Flowers grew in such abundance and variety that he guessed at their intentional planting, at least some of them; some years ago;

and by whom? That he did not know …

he never saw signs of another’s presence; never even the smallest fragment of glass or other detritus; and as for imprints of footsteps on the muddy bank, there were none, none save those of the waterbirds and his own. But while many of the blooms were native sorts, there were some that he had never seen elsewhere on the peninsula, or had only seen populating some of the more lavish gardens in town, raised from seed that must have been shipped in from somewhere else very far away.

Each was lovely in his eyes, and all the lovelier together.

There was no hierarchy; of all the myriad occupants of his little secret, he had no favourite. In truth, he had never known more than a few of the species by name, instead differentiating them from one another by simple appearance and assigning labels without words to them in his head,

recognizing them by sight; as a lover of music in a foreign country, who, despite not knowing either name or libretto of what become his most beloved endemic pieces, will still in a short span of time learn to recognize each by its first notes …

it was a comfortable sort of knowledge; he felt confident in his practice; his sense of colour was innately well-formed, although almost superfluous;

whether through floriculture or chance, the flowers already grew complementary to one another; cool shades of blue and violet and pale magenta that seemed to catch and consume the descending beams of light and properly glow before the backdrop of warm earth and viridescent foliage …

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From the first springbloom to the later heats of summer he would follow the steps that led from town to the riverside green, where locals and tourists alike would lay out their blankets and baskets and crack bottles and laugh and lounge and embrace murmuring in the high light, and he would roll up his trousers and walk down along the river’s gravelly edge,

the water rising above his knees, the faint shapes of trout darting in and out of his wake, and shortly past the point where the sound and vision of his fellow rivergoers had escaped perception, he would reach his secret,

embraced itself by the frame of the maple-tree and its successors, and he would pass through and recline by himself for a time, enjoying the sun and the quiet air, and following he would pick his bouquet of flowers …

He did this every week, at least; sometimes, more often.

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In our search for joy I believe it imperative to find that which stands alone; that is, joy that floats independently of the joys and sorrows of others; indeed, joy that is likewise independent of the others-themselves if at all possible; for our fragility must not be taken lightly; I have found this to be the only way our sorrows are held weak in captivity, with no hope of escape; I have found too that this is more than can be expected from the hearts of most men I have encountered …

and certainly these cuttings were not for himself; at least not directly; if there are men that so fervently collect flowers for the vases that adorn their own windowsills, I know them not; but men who construct bouquets for the captors of their hearts, those seemingly angelic forces that silently demand such offerings as tribute for providing that which may take shape as the singular source of warmth and light in a lover’s soul;

these men I have encountered time and time again; born rather too commonly, and living out their fragile lives in accordance to outer influence and outer fate,

and so often are thus fated to have their wellspring of joy darken into a stream of undoing. I cannot fault him any more than I can fault any other such man: he did love her; I believe he loved her very much, and for a time, at least, without fear, and for a time all was well, and his practice went on: it was one summer, then another, then another; then … it was hard to say.

In many ways life moved very slowly, but, of course, it refused to stop.

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And so it was eventually that things were longer the same;

as it so passed, they no longer spoke to one another;

in fact they scarcely saw one another at all.

When they did, the moments seemed weightless;

they existed to one another only as faint shadows that lay over the margins of sight, as those cast by low stratal clouds on a white-shrouded day.

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It is impossible to know what she thought of this new order of things; still, I am absolutely certain that for his part, for better or for worse, the flower-plucker found that this increased expanse between the two of them somehow nurtured a new and deeper sense of intimacy. He felt her presence constantly, and more acutely than ever before, and continued in his ways; continued to collect the flowers into his arrangements;

continued to leave them on the rocking-chair on her porch, which she had painted quite attractively, as blue as a perfect summer sky; or perhaps, if the winds were strong that day, he would bundle them into her mailbox, blue as well, though well-weathered, with chipped iron shining through its more ultramarine coat,

and she must have known they were his handiwork, for who else would it have been?

Without any further acknowledgement from her, his riverside ritual and the offerings it produced still provided him with great energy. For as long as he sustained it, he felt as though he was able to accomplish much; he believed that he was able to find both success and contentment, even peace, in many other aspects of his life;

and perhaps he did, but the nature and extent of these successes are beside the point, I think, and better recounted another time, if at all; as far as I know, none sustained for longer than one would expect …

yes, it is to my understanding that he inevitably faltered; even if circumstances were, as I have been led to believe, somewhat beyond his control in the end.

No matter: his contentment ceased, as such contentment inevitably does.

And then?

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Things could not be the same as before.

There was a botanist in town, a man of not inconsiderable knowledge and technique, who distracted himself from more academic pursuits by week-ending as a flower-arranger, and when it came to pass that the flower-plucker was no longer able to sustain his own practice, he would instead make arrangements to attend the Sunday market,

erected each week-end on the wide stone bridge that spanned one curve of the river that cut through the centre of town, near the municipal library; and the old mill, which had been converted some years ago into a brewhouse; and making his way through the lateral sequence of baked goods and produce, he would arrive at the botanist’s stand, almost perfectly centred in its placement upon the bridge’s cobbled surface …

There, after the most cursory exchange of pleasantries, he would carefully describe the arrangement he desired to the extent of his ability, masking the limits of his own vocabulary with a passionate attention to detail that neared desperation; while the botanist, to his credit, invested himself fully in bringing the designs of the flower-plucker into material shape, enjoying the break from the routine of his other clients, who were well-content with simpler efforts;

making no secret of the fact that he greatly appreciated the challenges set by the flower-plucker, who politely concurred with each repetition, replying that he took great comfort in collaborating with a man so apparently skilled,

all the while unable to extinguish the fear that billowed up within himself in ever-growing unstable plumes, the fear which whispered that which seemed insurmountably true, that these new bouquets were inferior somehow; if not in terms of technical craft, then on some other plane, secret and sentimental … even as the botanist did his best to assuage the worries of the flower-plucker, which must have been constant in his furrowed brow;

telling the flower-plucker again and again that these particular bouquets were certainly the finest the botanist had ever crafted …

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Well, it could not be known for certain.

The flower-plucker’s sight, after all, was not what it had once been.

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The new bouquets were delivered, no longer directly, which, due to the present circumstances, had become exceedingly difficult for the flower-plucker; but through the botanist’s service, which was professionally operated and very expedient,

although the surrogate nature of these actions was surely a factor that contributed to the increasing lack of fulfilment the flower-plucker felt within himself; as was the public nature of his selections and dialogue with the botanist; the market, well-trafficked even in the greyer months, hummed in full capacity at the height of summer;

and when he finished his selections, he would ask to be taken away with haste; still the process seemed to stretch longer in each instance; his former ease escaped him, and the passage of time seemed all too apparent; a whip dancing above his back, condescending to yet avoid striking him yet causing the very air to flex and flinch over his shoulders …

He could not be sure how many had seen him initially, but he knew he had been seen, and he knew that as this routine continued, so too did his witnesses increase in number and attention.

He could feel in his heart a great host of eyes lingering over him.

Of course they would tell her; how could they not?

Of course there were words to speak on his circumstances, and of course it would then follow that she would have a different sort of feeling brought about by these new tame and formulaic bouquets placed upon her porch,

placed at scheduled moments by innominate gloved hands that held no mystery, no romance;

placed like a common parcel, and she surely asked herself: what did he ever mean to me?

No, that wasn’t quite right.

No, she would ask herself if she had ever known his name …

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Eventually, the deliveries stopped altogether. She wondered, then, if the flower-plucker had decided that the whole process seemed more trouble than it was worth, and after some contemplation came to the conclusion that it was just so.

For the most part this hardly weighed on her at all; she had other matters to attend to. But here and there, as the calendar turned to certain days that ought to have been of ceremonial importance and then on and away, she occasionally let her thoughts to linger on just a question more:

Whatever did I mean to him?

It was all she had left to guess; certainly, he knew her name.

Who wouldn’t?

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Another year or so passed.

She would be greeted by other bouquets, later on, clusters of fiery golds and oranges, deep and bold yellows and reds; petals that shone as bright or brighter than the summer sun,

even when summer had long been sunk into the roots of the world, and I have neither impression of nor investment in the manner in which she received them.

But as for the flower-plucker?

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There was a new secret, a little room in which he was kept to himself, with a little bed that was just long enough to keep his toes from dangling over the ledge, and a fitted sheet, beneath a coarse flat sheet, beneath a soft white quilt and a white pillow with a white pillowcase.

Each wall had an artificial candle mounted at the height of his eyes as he lay prone, and there was an opaque vase which held a peace lily which was made from polyurethane. At first, there was an electric fan, and when everything became too cold, there was a little radiator on wheels, which was eventually replaced by heating vents that were mounted over the trim on the floor.

Even when the machines were running, it was very quiet.

He reclined in his quarters, focusing his eyes on a shape before him that appeared to him

almost as a window,

although he could not be certain;

in one moment, it was white upon black,

in others, black on white.

By now the world would be covered with snow, he guessed,

and perhaps at times this was what he was seeing through the shape before him,

that which might have been a window,

and he wished very much that the world would warm again.

But it would not be his world, he supposed.

He allowed himself back into a dreamless sleep, and I believe he slept for a very long time.

And then?

Was there a chance that this secret held him forever … ?

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I don’t know.

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No, I don’t think so.

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Saoirse Bertram is from Fairbanks, Alaska.