They were just flowers.

I stood. Transfixed in a tormenting daze, my sunken pupils met the array of tones, laid out in rows of deepest and dimmest along the market stall. The various shades and colours rebounding amongst the delicate fabric walls, my steady gaze encapsulated within the many hues and my limbs suspended in hesitance. A feeling of inability washing over me to break the monotonous cycle of my eyes circling between my body, mind and sight. The echo of coins rattling, paper rustling, witnessing petals withering before me, flower heads which were drooping at my very feet, their life drained and seeping from their little stems, my simple control in the hands in the dark abyss of my own creative mind.

“This isn't real, this isn't real” are the words I uttered in low tones, in an attempt to redirect my deranged images. The twisted branches at the end of my palms grasped towards this illusion that nestled before me, a disguise, a facade, taking form in the charm of nature's production. Why? Why was my incapable mind unable to shake away the filter that had been forced upon me? Would I ever see the world in its raw form? For the scene in front of my very eyes wasn't the warped, malicious representations I had made it out to be. Subconsciously I was aware the shade over my vision wouldn't allow a clear and exposed view of the world, was there something wrong with me? For they were earth's beauties. For they were just flowers. And where I was standing was just in front of a market stall, a flower stall.

My visions were abruptly cut off by my conscious awareness which was transported back into sensation. I could feel every hair attached to my head, the thin breeze brushing against every inch of my skin and now in the very moment a hefty figure of a hand shifting its weight onto my shoulder. A thick and heavy voice running through my ears and echoing into my cranium.

“Are you alright?” 

Those were the words that resounded before me. I stopped and wrenched my weary skull to rotate a few inches subjecting myself to be in full view of the keeper of the stall, his prodigious hands clenching onto a pair of scissors in one hand and a bundle of flower cuttings bunched up in the other. 

A single elongated moment of hesitation went by as I struggled to articulate a string of words together, stuttering on each syllable and the letters all jumbled in my mouth, sounds a complete blur. I scanned the crowd of eyes fixed onto my position, their uniform heads blowing up like balloons, they ogled in anger and plain disgust, the rows and lines of people, extending themselves into inexistence, into the never ending, one by one their attentive focus diverting onto me. The cause of inconvenience, the creator of despair, the obstacle in each of their paths, the root cause of destruction. 

My existence had been summed up by the flowers in my presence, my very human existence leeching onto those that surrounded me, those that possessed the simple decency to donate their loving attention to my primitive needs, my presence nurtured to deteriorate, my life's morals and purpose to be of viewing pleasure of another. Fed to fade away and constantly in a state of dissatisfaction. 

No matter my efforts to assemble an arrangement of vowels and consonants, I stood there, helpless, watching them watch me. Not long before the useless pair of legs beneath my torso gained an urge of movement, a sudden spring of step. Startling into action, they paced, working as rapidly and persistently as they could, carrying me away, working each muscle in order to take me to where my thoughts would be at ease, as far away as my mind would permit and my sense of direction being compassed by my feeling of discomfort.

I paced past each market stall, the rainbow of pastels smeared in my vision, struggling to dart through the huddles of people, each of them twisting their spines to glare in my direction. I started into a fast walk, then into a sprint, my breath growing increasingly dense like metal, my lungs working to keep me in a state of movement. I just wanted to be elsewhere, any place, anywhere.

My limbs now in complete desperate articulation, They began to carry me away, far away from the people, far away from the stares, far away from all perception of others.

I was being transported to the most secure place my occupied mind could take me to, the Sakura Tree. A haven bearing sanctuary, which provided me with an essence of tranquillity, a soothing sentimentality silencing the uproar of my artistry. The familiarity of its trunk and the ground that nurtured its constantly broadening roots. A place where I could rearrange the jigsaw of my thoughts, in hopes that one day they would become a completed puzzle, a place where I would come to read and write my stories, meditate, away from the constant white noise, the constant ringing of people, It was a place of bliss. When I arrived in the presence of such a heavenly creation, a celestial feeling came over me, as if pails of water were lifted off my shoulders, as if blocks of gravel had been sanded away from the soles of my feet. 

I paused in awe of the sheer extent of its velvet blossoms, each one perfectly placed onto branches reaching and swaying in the gentle breeze. My feet plunged with each step into the cushioned grass beneath me, the liveliness of each blade bouncing back with vigour as I lifted each foot. In time, my heaving and wheezing reduced, the oxygen being restored within me. Admiring the tower of the landscape which sheltered me, I made my way over to the base of this glorious creation, resting my weight onto the stable body of tree behind me, my pen and scruffy notebook which I rested on my lap, and I began writing.