When the Tulips Bloom

Algernon Simmons used the mirror above his sink to adjust his tie. The pastel green seemed the perfect spring color against his white shirt. Once he put his black suit coat on he would be ready to go. 

He glanced at his watch. 5:37. They were going to be late. Looking up at his mirror again he watched through the glass as his wife placed her lapis lazuli earrings in place. The dark blue earrings really pulled out the color of her eyes. They also made a striking contrast against her candy apple red dress. Simmons could spend the entire night watching his wife and be completely content. 

She, however, would never stand for that. Her company was hosting their annual spring kickoff gala. It was a family and community event circled on calendars the moment it was announced. 

Exiting the bathroom Simmons shouted across the house. “Alright kiddos are you ready to go?”

 After a few moments of silence one of three voices responded. “Almost.” 

At least his daughter still answered him. There was no telling what his two boys were up to. 

Turning his attention back to his wife he asked “Babe are you ready?”

“Just putting on the finishing touches.” She said smiling. 

“You are mesmerizing.”

“Don’t make me blush.”

Simmons was about to say something else when he heard the sound of a brawl coming from the living room. Clearly his boys were wrestling. It sounded like a chair had been knocked over and then came the crashing sound of breaking glass. 

“I better go see what they broke,” he said as he passed his wife allowing his hand to caress her lower back as he passed. 

“Unless that was Mr. Hops or Lady Carrots go easy on them.”

“If it wasn’t, I might break them myself.” Simmons joked. 

“You wouldn’t dare!”

Simmons shrugged his shoulders as he exited the bedroom to check on the commotion. The porcelain rabbits were hideous but they had been in the family for at least three generations so they were an Easter season staple no matter how much he disliked them. 

His 9 and 7 year old boys were scurrying out of the room as he entered. It didn’t take long to see what was broken. Hops and Carrots would survive another day but the vase that had been filled with the first tulips of the season would not. Strewn among the green stems and the yellow, orange, and purple flowers were shards of glass in white and blue. As the water seeped across the floor Simmons called out. “Stop right there.”

Fearing some cruel and unusual punishment the boys froze but they didn’t face their father. 

“Turn around.” Simmons said sternly. 

Timidly the boys complied. 

Before he could say anything his 11 year old daughter who was watching from the other side of room spoke up. “I told you it wasn’t time for rough housing. We have the gala tonight.”

“Boys go grab a towel and wipe up the water. Your sister is right. We have to get going. But if you are on your best behavior tonight I think we can just chalk this up to a learning lesson.”

“What! They aren’t getting in trouble?”

“It depends on their behavior tonight. Besides it was an old vase.”

Simmons grabbed the keys as his wife entered the room. 

“Everyone ready?”

Just then Simmons heard his cell phone ring. Glancing at the screen he frowned. Judge Treinholt was calling. 

“Sorry babe I’ve got to take this. It shouldn’t be more than 15 minutes. Go on ahead and I will meet you there.”

“Don’t let him take more than 30 minutes. He should be at the gala too.”

Simmons kissed his wife as he answered the phone. He looked out the window as the judge began droning on about motions to compel and contempt of court. 

Simmons watched his wife pull out of the driveway. He admired her tulip garden on the east side of the yard. The red and yellow tulips were really popping this year. As the judge continued his diatribe about compulsory sanctions Simmons inspected the fresh blooms on his apricot trees. They should have plenty of fruit to share this year. 

The call that never seemed to end mercifully came to a close after 20 minutes and 23 seconds. The topics discussed on the phone were tomorrow’s problems. Now it was time to unwind at the biggest social event of the season. 

Simmons activated the alarm and walked into the garage. He would take the sports car. He had to make up some time. Besides there was nothing like showing up late in a flashy orange car. 

He started the engine and backed out of the garage. As he pulled onto the street the commercial break on the radio was interrupted by a special news bulletin. He turned up the volume. The Washington Bridge on Old County Road 17 has collapsed. Emergency crews are on site and there are confirmed fatalities. The details are unclear but we are getting reports of a collapsed bridge with fatalities. If you are in the area avoid Old County Road. 

Simmons braked hard and pulled over to the side of the road. He turned the radio off and grabbed his phone. His family had to cross that bridge to reach the gala. Surely his wife would have called or texted to say they were safe. There were no messages. He called his wife. No answer. He wanted to use the location tracker on his phone to see where she was but he wasn’t ready for the finality of what he already suspected to be true. 

He peeled out pulling back onto the road and his fiery orange sports car broke every possible driving law as he raced towards the bridge. 

The road was blocked several hundred yards before the bridge. As he pulled over and exited his car, he noticed that Jerry Prince was the police officer manning the blockade. This was fortuitous as they had been best friends since third grade. 

“Jerry!” Simmons called as he exited his car. As Prince looked at Simmons his professional training couldn’t hide the sorrow behind his eyes. 

“I’m sorry Al.”

“Where are they!” Simmons shouted in a desperate rage.”

“At the bottom of the ravine.”

“No, no! I have to see them.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“Jerry, please.”

The voice of his shattered friend filled Prince with compassion and against protocol he walked him to the edge of the ravine. 

Simmons looked down and 250 feet below in a mangled tangle of steel and concrete he could see the remnants of his wife’s SUV. There were no survivors. 

“I’m sorry Al. But you have to go back behind the police line now.”

Simmons returned to his car a broken man. They were all gone. He didn’t remember the drive home. Once he entered his house he was greeted by the smell of his wife’s perfume. He staggered into the living room and the first thing that he saw was a blue and white vase with red and yellow tulips. He picked up the vase and held it in his hands. He slumped to the floor. He thought about the matching vase that his boys had broke hours earlier and he cried uncontrollably. He took the vase and threw it across the room. It shattered against the opposite wall in a kaleidoscope of color. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore. Everything precious in his life was gone. And he should have been with them. He would never feel anything again. 

Hours passed as he stared at the shattered vase and scattered flowers. He was numb and unaware of the phone calls and the ring of the door bell. At some point hours or days later he passed out from exhaustion. Simmons had no idea how long he was asleep. 

He was jolted from his sleep by the sound of his wife’s voice. It was only a whisper but he knew he heard it. 

“Al Keep Moving.”

When Simmons opened his eyes everything seemed duller. But he realized he needed to get up. He walked to the window to figure out if it was night or day. He guessed night because everything appeared to be a shade of gray. He walked outside and picked a tulip. Once he walked inside he noticed the tulip was still gray. In fact everything was gray. 

As the weeks passed Simmons fell into a routine but color never returned to his life. Everything was a dull shade of gray. Just as there was no love left in his heart there was no color left in his world. He became emotionless. He threw himself into his work. He was at his desk every morning at 5:45 and stayed until 9:45 every night. 

He was like a machine. Every day seven days a week his routine was exact. Every morning at 5:15 he would drink a protein shake. At 11:15 he would eat a salad with berries. At 7:15 he would eat a steak with potatoes and green beans. His routine never changed. He didn’t even taste the food he ate. Everything was gray. 

He was an expert. No one knew the law better than him or how to apply it to any case. 10 months had passed and Simmons had not deviated from his self-inflicted schedule. 

Then one day he didn’t show up in his office. It was a Tuesday and everyone feared the worst. Jerry performed a wellness check and found Simmons working on his wife’s tulip garden. Simmons bought the vacant lot next to his house and had plans of turning it into a tulip garden. He approached the work with the same mechanical precision. During the months devoted to the tulip garden he only worked from 5:45 am until 1:45pm. Then he would work in his garden until 9:45. He had lights installed to ensure his progress would not be interrupted by darkness. 

Simmons felt no joy in what he did. He felt nothing. Everything in his life was gray. If he closed his eyes and thought about it he could see the shattered vase and the red and yellow tulips. As another year passed even that memory grew gray. 

Professional accolades were lavishly awarded. His garden was voted the best in America and yet Simmons was empty. He was a very intelligent highly calibrated machine. Another year passed and everything started to become duller and duller. Soon there would be no distinguishing between shades of gray and when that happened Simmons would cease to exist. He longed for that moment. Until then he had to keep moving. 

On the 17th of May four years after the accident Simmons sat in his office working on a draft memorandum when he felt a breeze brush against his cheek. The air conditioning system had been acting up and for some reason had sent a blast of wind directly past him. 

This insignificant moment in time changed everything. Simmons got up from his desk and drove home. He was thinking about a beach ball. He found an old photo album and dusted off the cover. For several moments he flipped through the pages until he found what he was looking for. 

It was a family photo at the beach. They had been playing with a beach ball when a blast of wind had struck him just as the air conditioner in his office had. As he looked at the photo he noticed the red and blue and yellow of the beach ball. It had been so long since he had seen color that he almost couldn’t comprehend this minuscule amount of color inside a 5 by 7 photograph. 

Simmons realized that life is meant to be enjoyed. He didn’t have to be a robot reduced to seeing the world in a dull shade of gray. He took the photograph and put it in his pocket. 

Then he made a phone call. 

“Jerry take a sick day. We are playing golf today.”

For the first time in years Simmons had fun. He chose to do something he used to love. He was terrible. A four year gap in playing destroyed his swing but he was able to laugh and have a good time. 

As the weeks went by Simmons expanded his extracurricular activities. He even took a 10 day vacation to see Rome. He was beginning to think that he might actually learn to enjoy life. If only everything wasn’t so gray. 

Committed to looking towards the future Simmons decided to conquer the last demon of his past. He visited the cemetery. He had never done that before. Looking down at his wife’s headstone he took the beach picture and left it there. It was emotionally draining to visit the graves but he felt peace. 

The next morning Simmons walked outside around 9:00 to see if his Tulips had started to bloom yet. To his surprise one bloom stuck out in particular. It was a vibrant yellow with streaks of red in it. 

Simmons blinked. He rubbed his eyes and yet that one flower truly was yellow and red. He ran to it and dropped down on his knees. He looked at it. He was so close to it that that his eye was almost touching it. The color was there and it was beautiful. 

He had to touch it. When he did color started spreading everywhere. Soon the whole world was awash in shades of blue and green and red and every other color imaginable. All the ghosts of his past were gone and Simmons had returned to the real world. He was a machine no longer. He was willing to feel again even if it was painful. 

That night as he set his phone down he realized it was the 5th anniversary of the crash. It was the first time that day he had thought about it. Simmons looked forward to taking new risks and living in color again. He would cherish the past but now it was time to live in the present. His wife would always be with him. Especially when the tulips bloomed.