Smell the Flowers, Blow Out the Candles

My name is David Young. I am 33 years old. I work remote in tech support, rent my apartment, and spend my weekends with my good friend Jim Beam. Due to poor life choices, I live across the state from my parents, friends, and any support system. 

Six months ago, my girlfriend of two years - my fiancée of three - left me. Two years ago we moved out here for her work. She kept the house, car, and daughter. Her name was Valarie, our daughter was Jessica. 

Three weeks ago I was angry - angry, and drunk. I punched a hole in my wall. White-hot agony radiated from my wrist. I hated myself in that moment. I had been thinking about the day I had met Valarie, and how much I made her laugh. She didn’t laugh in the end. I wished I could go back to just before I hit the wall. 

And I did. 

I stood, drunk but no longer angry - only bewildered. The once fist sized hole in my dry plaster wall was no longer there. My curled fist dropped, confused, from near my ear to dangle at my side. I could remember swinging. I could remember the pain. I couldn’t remember what had made me so angry. 

Clearly I was more drunk than usual. I went to sleep. 

Three days later, I was loading the dishwasher. I was drunk - drunk, and angry. As I bent over to load my favorite pint glass - a gift from Valarie from our second date to commemorate our first, I remembered how it used to feel with her. On impulse - drunken, angry impulse - I hurled the glass at the wall. It shattered. I hated myself in that moment. More and more, I was giving into my baser emotions, becoming belligerent with my actions. I wished I could go back to just before I threw the glass. 

And I did. 

I stood, drunk but no longer angry - only bewildered. The shards of a broken relationship no longer overlaid by the shards of broken glass. The glass in question was in my hand. Cocked, ready to launch, up beside my ear. I could remember throwing the glass. I could still hear the sound of the pieces tinkling on the linoleum. I couldn’t remember why I threw the glass. 

Clearly I was drinking too much. I went to sleep. 

The next day I was hungover - hungover, and angry. My boss wanted to talk about my goals with the company. Valarie and I used to lay in each other’s arms planning our future. Our dreams. Our goals for ourselves, each other. For Jessica.  

I told my boss that my only goal was to get off this call as quickly as fucking possible, meander through what remained of my eight hour shift, and get back to maintaining a respectable blood alcohol level. I hated myself in that moment. My boss had always been good to me, giving me paid time off after Valarie and I split and walking me through the employee housing assistance program. I wished I could go back to just before I ran my mouth. 

And I did. 

I could remember the hurt look on my boss’s face - the confusion, the pity. I could not remember why I had said those things. But now my boss was sitting patiently waiting for my response. 

Clearly I was unwell.

I apologized to my boss and took a sick day. As I shut down my work computer my head spun. I was dizzy, nauseous. I broke into a cold sweat. My pulse was pounding and my hands trembled. I self-medicated with the bottle near my desk. I took a few deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Smell the flowers, blow out the candles. Smell the flowers, blow out the candles. The same mantra the doctor had given Valarie in the delivery room. 

I grabbed a notebook and a pen. I drew a large, angry X on the first page I flipped to. I waited a few moments, then wished I could go back to just before I did. 

And I didn’t. 

Dejected, I ripped the paper out of the notebook, wadded it up, and tossed it across the room. I waited a moment, then wished I could go back to just before I did. 

And I didn’t. 

That was all it took. I felt the dam give way inside me. The ache and sadness I’d been numbing with bourbon flowed freely. I began to sob. I was confused - confused and angry. 

Confused and angry and scared. 

What was wrong with me? Did I have some kind of brain tumor? Had I finally drank myself into a permanent psychosis? 

Valarie would know what was wrong with me. Valarie had always known what was wrong with me. I thought about all the times she had been there to comfort me when it all just got to be too much. That hurt to think about. I grabbed the first thing within reach - the uncapped bottle of bourbon - and threw it away from me. 

It hit the wall and spilled on the floor. I hated myself in that moment. I was so weak - weak and stupid.

Useless. 

I wished I could go back to just before I took that self-medicating shot. 

And I did. 

I was back in front of my work desk, watching the light from my computer monitor slowly die as I reached for the untossed, unspilled bottle on my desk. 

Frantically, I grabbed the notebook and pen and flipped desperately through the pages. No big, angry X. No wad of paper on the floor. 

I could remember I had been crying. I had been upset. Overwhelmed. Then I had thought about something - something to do with Valarie - and then lashed out. 

Trembling, I took a shot, then turned back to the notebook. I drew another X. Then I thought about Valarie. About our talks while we walked around the block with Jessica, one tiny hand in one of ours. I thought about our lazy family days on the couch watching T.V. when it was too hot to play outside. 

That hurt, and I got angry. 

I wished I could go back to before I had drawn that X.

And I did. 

But I couldn’t remember what I had been thinking about before. I only knew it was something to do with Valarie. Valarie and… someone else. 

So that was it. A price. An equal exchange. 

One good memory to undue one bad. 

The next few days I began to experiment. I could go back. I could go back as much as I wanted. It just cost a memory. They were still there, technically - just fuzzy. Blurred. The edges and the detail sloshed and smooshed and out of focus. Shadows. 

I indulged. Greedily and with gusto. 

I could curse out tedious users at work. I could punch the obnoxious asshole blaring music from his phone on the train. I could blow off work for an entire day then reset back to the start of my shift.

I had time. I could give into my baser emotions. I could release the pent up aggression. I could take time for me. I could be me. Time to drink. Time to sleep. Time to breathe. Smell the flowers, blow out the candles. Smell the flowers, blow out the candles. 

Each and every time I felt lighter. More whole. Day by day, Valarie’s face drifted further and further out of the forefront of my mind. Our time together became more and more incorporeal. More a ghost than a memory. 

But Jessica was becoming fuzzier too. 

That scared me. But I didn’t want to stop. It felt too good. It felt better than anything had in years. Better than anytime I could remember with Valarie. So I did my best to keep thoughts of Jessica at bay. Shield her from being forgotten by consciously ignoring. Pieces of her were still caught in the crossfire, little flecks here and there. So much of her was tied to Valarie that it was inevitable. But at least the core was solid. 

Until I killed the fly. 

I was drunk - drunk and angry. Loading the dishwasher again, taunted by the marauding fly. It would swoop in, buzzing and chaotic. The perfect amount of annoying. The perfect fuel to set me off. To let the base urges free to feed. 

It landed on the counter in front of me. I stood with an insectile stillness. Predatory. I felt the anticipation swell. I reveled in anticipation of the vengeance for this minor annoyance.

In a flash, all that remained was a reddish smudge and my stinging palm. I grinned. Skin erupting in gooseflesh. Hairs standing on end. I reached for my bourbon and remembered. 

We had chased a fly once. Valarie, Jessica and myself. Chased it all around the house. Laughing all the while. At first I had grabbed the swatter to kill it but Jessica had wailed and shrieked in protest. 

“No, don’t!” she cried. 

That was my Jessica. How could someone so small have such a big heart? The mere thought of me killing a fly broke her, and in turn broke me, and so we had agreed to catch it and set it free. I couldn’t let her think I was a monster. Not for killing a fly. So we had caught it and done exactly that. I remembered her smile, her little body swelling with joy and jumping up and down as she pulled the paper away from the opening of the cup to let the fly buzz out into the warm summer evening air. 

That hurt. More than anything had in a long while. I wondered what Jessica was doing now. It’s been so long, but she still hadn’t wanted to see me since the split. Since I -

I cut myself off. That was nothing to brood on at the moment. I let myself feel the hurt and the sadness. I was on a razor’s edge. A tightrope that I lacked the grace and balance to cross. 

I had time. I could indulge and feed my anger. I could feed off it. Receive satisfaction, sometimes ecstasy. Brief spurts of revelry in my base instincts at the cost of a thousand memories of smiles. A thousand nights just like that night with the fly. With Valarie. With Jessica. 

If anger was fuel, why couldn’t sadness be too? I looked inside myself, into that reptilian void and shoved my sadness there, wishing I could go back to just before I killed the fly. 

And I did. 

But something was wrong. The fly was whole again on the counter. I couldn’t remember what I had been thinking about. It had been something to do with someone. Their faces were scratched out in the memory. 

The fly began to scream. Could flies scream?. It dropped off the wall and began writhing on the linoleum of my kitchen. Its torment gushing forth through that ear piercing, eye watering cry. I dropped to my knees with my hands over my ears. It started to scream at the exact time I had killed it, I vaguely registered. Before I wished I hadn’t crushed it. Just a few breaths - Smell the flowers, blow out the candles. Smell the flowers, blow out the candles - before I had swatted it. 

I woke up hours later on the floor. There was vomit on the floor, and I was in the vomit. The fly lay on its back. Dead. 

Something had gone wrong. Something about the fly. Something about having died. Something about having been brought back. 

My phone rang. The letters on the caller ID swam in and out of focus. Alien scrawls that meant nothing and everything.  

Valarie? Did it say Valarie? 

“Hello?” I answered, confused. 

“David,” the woman’s voice was shaken. She sounded like she had been crying. “David, there’s been an accident. Jessica is in the hospital.” 

That name was important. As important as the indecipherable runes on my Caller ID had been. I couldn’t make it out. I just breathed heavily into the phone. 

“For fuck’s sa- David, are you drunk again?” She huffed through the phone. “Who am I kidding, of course you are. Listen, you need to get down here to the hospital. Don’t drive. I’ll call you a cab.” 

The line went dead. 

That was odd. Valarie and I hadn’t spoken in six months. The only times I had ever seen her had been from down the driveway when I’d gone to pick up… pick up? 

Jessica. Yes. Jessica. My daughter. I have a daughter. Her name is Jessica. She is two years old. We used to go… She likes to… 

She’s in the hospital. I pulled myself off the floor and did my best to pull myself together. Slapping my face and shaking my head. Jessica. My daughter is Jessica. She’s in the hospital. I hopped in the shower and got the vomit out of my hair and put on some clean clothes. The cab pulled up to my apartment after my third shot. 

“The fuck took you so long?” the cabbie asked as I got in the back of the cab. 

“Sorry,” I mumbled. I’d just watched him pull up. I felt my pulse quicken and I grit my teeth. 

“Been sitting here for thirty fucking minutes,” the cabbie complained. “Meter was running the whole time buddy. You’re paying for that time.” 

“Thirty minutes?” I said, bewildered. “I just watched you pull up and came right out.” 

The cabbie snorted. He glanced up at me in the rearview and I saw the look. He grimaced. 

“Smell like a fucking brewery,” he mumbled. “No sense of fucking time.” 

He had began to pull out of the lot when I hit him. I hit him hard, and continued to hit him. I was scared. I was confused. I couldn’t remember my daughter. I could remember less about my ex. I was angry. 

Angry, and drunk. 

He threw his arms up to shield his face after the first hit, dropping his left arm to grab something in the car door. A gun. He raised it, pointing it at me. 

I grabbed it. We wrestled over it. He cursed me. I spit at him. I got the gun. I pulled the trigger. 

We gaped at each other in shock for a few moments. Moments felt like hours. My ears rang. I could see his Adam’s apple raising and dropping, raising and dropping as he gasped to draw breath - smell the flowers, blow out the candles. Smell the flowers, blow out the candles. A dark stain of blossomed on his chest. His head dropped limp. 

I screamed. I hated myself then. I hated everything about myself. Every second of every day. Every word spoken, sip taken. Every good time. Every bad. 

I wished I could go back and take it all away. I needed to get to my daughter. My daughter Jessica. I thought about the day she was born. The memory moved like molasses in my mind’s eye. Slightly obscured as if by frosted glass. I pushed through. I got closer. I needed to see. I needed to remember. It got clearer. 

Clearer. 

Clear. 

She was beautiful. Perfect. An angel. I could quit drinking for her. I could put up with the monotony and tedious, repetitive existence. For her it was all worth it. 

Until it wasn’t. 

I wished I could go back. 

And I did. 

“The fuck took you so long?” the cabbie asked as I got in the back of the cab. 

I sat, stunned. I saw him look at me in the rearview mirror. I saw the look. 

“Smell like a fucking brewery,” he mumbled. “No sense of fucking time. I’ve been sitting here for thrity fucking minutes,” the cabbie complained. “Meter was running the whole fucking time, buddy. You’re paying for that time.” 

“Of course,” I sputtered. “Absolutely.” 

He snorted in disgust, then pulled out of the lot. Then began to scream. 

He clutched at his chest, horrid agony purring from his mouth. He stared at me in wild eyed disbelief. He panicked and flung himself from the vehicle. He ran. 

My heart thundered. I could hear the blood rushing to my head. Everything began to whirl. 

Jessica, I thought. Get to Jessica. 

I hopped into the driver’s seat. I got out of the cab at the hospital. I walked through the doors. I waited in line at the desk. I asked after Jessica. 

“Last name?” the receptionist asked. 

“Young,” I said. 

“Hmm,” she mused. “I’m not seeing any Jessicas. Young, old, or otherwise.” She chuckled at her own joke. “Are you sure you’re at the right hospital?” 

“Yes, I’m sure,” I said. “She might be under my ex’s last name. It’s-“ my phone rang. 

The Caller ID said Valarie. Valarie? 

“Hello?” I answered. 

The voice that came through the other end was shrieking. It was the cabbie. It was the fly. My vision split apart and I fell. And fell. And fell. 

I was scared. Scared, and angry. I wished I could go back. I wished I could go back before I answered that phone call. I thought of my life. I couldn’t remember… my daughter. I couldn’t remember… my ex. I thought about it all. Every happy memory. Every bad. I wished I could go back. 

And I did. 

I turned from the reception desk and walked into the memory of the delivery room. Valarie lay on the birthing table. I was holding her hand. She was crushing mine. 

“Okay, okay - deep breaths for me now Valarie,” A masked man - the doctor - said. My head spun. I was drunk. Drunk, and confused. “Deep breaths, Val. That’s it. Smell the flowers, blow out the candles. Very good.” The doctor leaned forward. “She’s starting to crown. I see her! Alright Val, big push!” 

Val screamed. I screamed. Jessica screamed. 

And screamed. 

And screamed.