Forgotten Flowers

Forgotten Flowers

A young traveler arrived at her master’s home. She returned from a long journey with nothing more than questions. Her purpose was as unclear as the day she left to find herself. “You still haven’t understood what’s within.” Her mentor inisted. He stood up from his rocking chair and waved his hand to follow him.

The girl rolled her eyes and threw her arms up in frustration. She let out a loud huff that expressed her thoughts clearly but she couldn’t hold her tongue. “What is there to understand? I went on a walk for almost an entire week foraging and hunting for food and water like a damn peasant. All I got from it was more survival experience that I have plenty of to start with.” She exasperatedly explained but still fell in line walking behind him. The older man grunted in displeasure and smacked the top of her temple with his staff as reprimand.

“You are such a model student. Perfect discipline, perfect work ethic, perfect intellect, perfect physicality but your mindset is too realistic. Only a dreamer can find their purpose. Realists abandon their dreams. And a person’s purpose is a person’s dream.” The elder elaborated constructively. He knew she was brash and hot headed. A skeptic who could not be flexible in her thinking. He decided this was the only way.

The old man guides her to the middle of a grass plain scattered with beautiful flowers, the sky as sunny as can be. The teacher then trails his staff along the ground in a circle around the girl. And the girl remains skeptical as she has a brash and realistic personality. But as she is complaining about how this is stupid, her teacher places his hand on her shoulder before handing her a flower. He proclaims to her, “Red, you are a flower of this field. This circle is your soil. You will not leave it until you know even the deepest corners of yourself.” The girl looks at him confused but as the man pulls his hand out of the circle, rain begins to pour from the sky. The raindrops taste pure until they taste of nothing. He speaks to her but she does not hear. The girl calls out to her mentor but she makes no sound. The girl reaches her hand out but she does not move. She feels the rain become heavier but she sees her mentor is dry. She feels as though she is frozen in time. Her touch dissipates but she sees the water flow down her skin like a shower. She looks to the sky and her vision fades to black. For seven minutes and 6 seconds. She can only think. Her thoughts are steady and calm, she cannot feel or sense a thing. Yet her emotions are unmoving as sand and gravel mixed with cement. As still as a shadow in the darkness of the night sky. As static as death itself.

When 7 minutes and 6 seconds had passed, she tastes sand on her tongue. 6 seconds pass. She hears the sound of wind. The symphony of gusts akin to a song. 6 seconds pass. She says aloud, “What a lovely tune.” 6 seconds pass. She feels coarse grains in her grasping fists. 6 seconds pass. She sees a dark empty sky with a shining moon. 6 seconds pass. She jolts to her feet and observes her surroundings. Her clothes are several cloth garments and a cloak designed for the desert. “I wasn’t wearing-“ Sand gets into her eye and she rubs it fiercely, covering her face with the cloak. “Where the hell am I? What is this place?” She questioned aloud to herself.

“A desert.” A sarcastic voice promptly responded. “My test.” A calculating voice promptly responded. “Our storm.” A threatening voice promptly responded. “Their mirage.” A calm voice promptly responded. “Your home.” A kind voice promptly responded. “My grave.” A booming voice announced.

Shaken with fear, the young girl retorted politely. “Who are you?” Nervous but full of curiosity and wonder. The voices bursted into a quiet titter, a soft giggle, a light chuckle, a hearty laugh, all the way into bumbling hysterics. The decrescendo is as quick as the escalation. Followed by a light flick on the nose and the appearance of a tall man dressed in black and green with an appearance human words could not describe.

“I’m Explore and Scour and Pursuit and Search and Locate and Seek.” He said enthusiastically with facial expressions she couldn’t quite comprehend. “There are six of us!!” They said in unison. All from the same mouth of the same body. The sound sends chills down her spine. “And you are?” The voice returns back to the singular male.

“Re-” she mutters yet is interrupted by the jeering of the man in front of her who pushes her down by her shoulder abruptly. She sinks into the sand without a chance to react. As she is engulfed in sand she appears in a room of nothingness. She notices that she is seated and looks down to see she is on a throne of bones causing her to leap from the seat out of fear and begin to plummet into nothingness.

Her hand is grabbed while she is falling and she hears the laughter once again. “Wrongggggg answer!!!” He cackled uncontrollably as he pulled her into his arms. She fought against him until she saw that there was now a floor coming into view from the drop. She allowed him to hold her and as they hit the ground with a loud crack. She was completely unscathed. The man had disappeared once again. She lifted herself off the ground and looked around. There was nothing except nothing as far as the eye could see.

She stood there in deep thought only for a moment before deciding the best idea was to walk randomly into the nothingness. When she took a single step, a door appeared in front of her with the text “Explore” carved into the woodwork. She didn’t hesitate to open the door and once again arrived in the desert.

His voice rang in her ears like a siren. “That was fast, you are pretty sure of yourself for someone who doesn’t even know their own name,” he mocked. “I’ll let you return temporarily if you can at least figure this one out.” The voice spoke in a tone that was less patient than before. The girl didn’t quite get it but she knew that he seemed like a bad guy to piss off. She thought to herself once again and about the events before this moment.

She thought about the door. She could’ve sworn she had heard Explore before then. “That’s it!” She thought to herself as she began to sprint across the sand with such vigor even the man was amused. She ran and ran and ran. She had been on many adventures learning to observe her surroundings and noticing things others might miss. That’s when she saw it. A small patch of dirt in the vast sandy desert. Sprouting from the dirt was a small half grown flower that grew and grew the closer she approached.

When she arrived at the flower, she immediately picked it and held it up to show the man but he was nowhere to be seen. She then heard the voices echo across the entire desert, reverberating within the sand. “We have no desire for a flower that is only on the brink of blooming into its true beauty.” They said in unison. The girl clenched her fist and bit her tongue. She wanted to respond with foul words so badly she made her tongue bleed.

She gathered herself and spoke, blood dripping from the side of her mouth slightly slurring her words. “Explore! That’s one of your names, right?” She shouted eagerly. The man then materialized in front of her once again and held out his hand. “That it is. What’s yours kid?” He asked her in an almost sarcastic tone of voice.

“My name is…” she hesitated and looked at the flower intently. She had seen plenty of flowers on her adventures. She was trying to connect the dots. Explore, flower, her name. Explore, flower, her name. Explore, flower, her name. She repeated it continuously in her mind for several minutes without noticing before she abruptly blurted out.

“I explored the desert to find this flower to discover my name! Dahlia! The answer is Dahlia, my name is Dahlia!” She showed and felt enthusiasm that you wouldn’t have seen from her since she was a small child. As she spoke, the flower bloomed in her hand and the man took it with a smile on his face. The first distinguishable expression he had made. “Took you long enough kid.” Explore joked as he snapped his fingers.

The desert and Explore disappeared without a trace and Dahlia’s tears dripped down her cheek at what she saw. It was as if this had been planned from the start. The flowery field, the bright sun, and her mentor holding out a bouquet of Dahlia flowers with a massive smile on his face. “You’re just getting started, my sweet daughter.”