Forget Me Not

The only thing he had to complain about, he supposed, was that the filtering morning sun didn’t land perfectly on his corner of the world, his dainty flower shop. The rays looked so holy descending to Earth, and it crushed a piece of his heart every time they settled shy of the rows of plants. 

A hulking, slightly overgrown Norfolk pine was stationed in the corner of the store, and Raul could see its symmetrical, spiky green limbs dipping over magenta petunias at its base. He sighed, fed up as always with this particular inhabitant. It stood stoic as ever, uncaring about the flowers it masked; though technically that was Raul’s fault for not trimming it properly. 

Tsking, he ambled over to the behemoth, balancing some of its limbs and inspecting its pot. 

It was then the door clanged open, Raul unfortunately still tucked in the monstrous plant, and the man swept in. 

Raul breathed out, ignoring the dirt that blew up and flecked his face. The scent of earth clogged his nostrils as he struggled to his feet and turned to greet the customer. 

He was a different sort. He was an average height, spiky black hair cut immensely short- almost military style- with a wide-legged, firm stance. Before Raul could call out, a tan, scarred face with apathetic gray eyes locked onto him. He took several steps back for no particular reason. The man surveyed Raul quickly, up and down once, but didn’t pivot his body to open a conversation. A long black coat covered everything except for his shoes- polished Oxfords. With stunningly perfect posture and a strange confidence lining every limb, something set off in the back of Raul’s brain. That type of person with nothing to lose, with solid ice-chip eyes and features set like they expected a fight, an attack from all directions. 

He watched the man sniff and glance down at shoots of pale lilac just three feet away. They seemed to wither under his steadfast glare. 

Raul stuttered (he prayed it wasn’t obvious). “W-Welcome. Are you looking for something in particular…?” 

The stranger looked up, danger in every inch of his pockmarked, sewn-together skin. 

Raul instinctively smiled, looking to sell some flowers, but it turned out half-genuine. 

The stranger cleared his throat and spoke as softly as Old Man Winter’s touch. 

“Forget-me-nots. If you have them.” There was a barely perceptible hiss at the end of ‘nots,’ almost like a lisp but it could have been traces of a foreign accent. 

Raul nodded before he had finished speaking. He was eager to please this man, for no other reason than to get him out of the shop. Part of him wanted to believe the warning in his head was his imagination, but his gut told him the opposite. He almost stumbled, legs tangling together as he made his way over to the muted baby blue flowers, sprinkled with pinkish-white seashell petals. The dirt that coated the floor of the shop no matter how many times he cleaned caused him to slip a little, sliding past the forget-me-nots’ spot on the shelf. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the other man had no trouble navigating over the grimy floor. 

He slipped his shears from the pocket on his work apron and swiftly snipped a dozen stems. He carried them to the counter, wrapped them in matching blue and white paper, tied the bouquet, and rang up the stranger. The other man kept his hands by his sides, not resting against the counter or fiddling in his pockets like other customers. Raul felt his stare like a creature stalking at night, yellow eyes fixed upon vulnerable prey. He shivered and ignored how his hand shook a little as he handed over the forget-me-nots. 

“Here you go, sir. They’re a good choice for- for somebody.” He internally cringed at the awkward phrasing. 

A silky hand grasped the stem of the bouquet, lifting it gently. Raul could have fooled himself that it was never there, a ghost’s touch passing through the world. The man made eye contact one final time, gray pebbles revealing a bottomless pit, and gave a faint smirk, a slim, dangerous curve of flat lips, at Raul’s jumpiness. 

“Thanks. Have a good day now.” 

“You too…” 

The stranger floated between rows of plants, and disappeared out the door that gave a cheerful chime. 

Raul folded his hands together, allowing the silence to trickle into his blood, slow his rabbit-paced heart. The morning light did its work, projecting through windows to the back of the shop like a shoot of grass growing tall in the summer. The alarm bell had calmed down, but a tingling along his torso started as soon as the stranger left. 

He shook his head firmly. Another man’s business had nothing to do with his, and he bet it’d only bring trouble if he got involved. That man would go on his way with those delicate forget-me-nots. Raul didn’t need to know anything more than that. 

He had just given the man flowers, and nothing else. 

…  

Around five in the afternoon, the light dipped in the sky, painting the sidewalk outside his shop honey-golden, and Raul began to close down. 

It had doused his plants all afternoon after failing to visit them in the morning. He still thought it rather rude that the rays waited hours to soak into the store, but in the end nothing could be done. 

He juggled the shop keys in his hand, humming under his breath while shutting off the lights. The room, covered wall to wall in blooming and slumbering plants, darkened, their shapes outlined only in the reflected dying sunlight. Raul jogged outside, picked up the sign that advertised his deals, and brought it in for the night. 

He sighed heavily at the conclusion of another day of work, of talking with every individual plant in his store. It had been fun, if tiring, and the same thing would undoubtedly happen tomorrow. 

A low, strangled cough met his ears then, drifting from around the corner of his shop. He stood stock-still, startled out of his routine. The heat from the sun flooded his shoes, the only part of his body caught up in the dwindling light. It was a direct contrast to the cool tones of the blue-grey shadows pooling from the walls. The cough had come from there, from the shadows. 

He swallowed the block lodged in his throat, turned, and cautiously stepped over to the corner of the shop. He inched closer so he could see around the corner. 

Blood. 

That was the first thing that stood out to him because red like that- streaming, hot dark blood spilling from a spot on the man’s body- was something he had never seen before. The second thing was he realized he knew the man, or recognized him. It was the early morning customer. The stranger. 

He was sprawled out on the cement sidewalk, gasping and clutching the bleeding spot (it wasn’t just bleeding; bleeding was like bleeding from a small cut, a tiny bubble from the prick of a needle. This was more; it didn’t stop coming, gushing from the man’s torso and painting his flexed, tan hands. Were they tan? He couldn’t tell anymore. It was just blood). He was injured, obviously. 

Injured. 

The sight jolted Raul from his frozen fascination. He flailed, rushing forward before he could think better. He had never dealt with major injuries before, certainly not something that bled this much (it was everywhere) but he had to help somehow. 

He knelt by the man, gasping softly at the sheer magnitude of red blood that definitely shouldn’t be outside of a body. He looked at the man’s face, anything but the actual injury. 

The tan, weathered skin was twisted up in agony, mouth snarling as he forced the blood to stop flowing with quivering hands. 

“Oh! Oh-oh- okay! Hey, sir, sir? Should I call an ambulance? I-” 

“No.” The word was unyielding, despite its shaky tone. 

Raul still made an aborted movement to get up and run for the phone. He only paused at the man’s vehemence. 

“Why?!” he cried. “You need help, like- like serious help. I can’t help you!” 

The only response he got was more pained wheezing, the man’s eyes shut like he could block out the pain by blocking his sight. Involuntarily, Raul’s eyes dipped down to the wound but he whipped his gaze back up at the sight of split flesh and unrelenting red. No. No. This wasn’t happening. What was happening? Nausea swam in his stomach. 

“Look, I’m just gonna go into the shop quickly and call for an ambulance. You’re gonna...you’re gonna die if I leave you here, man.” 

He glimpsed a flash of irritation diffuse across the man’s face, but it was unexpectedly replaced by a smile. It was the same amusement tinging his smile from before, Raul remembered, at the counter as he took his flowers. 

The man’s mouth parted, breath still heaving between cracked lips. 

“You’re not going to leave me.” 

The words didn’t immediately register with Raul. He stared, uncomprehending, for three long seconds. 

“I- what? I’m not gonna… Yeah, I don’t wanna leave you, but I have to call for help or something. You need to go to the hospital-” 

“You’re not calling anyone.” 

The frigid tone he used washed over Raul like a battering ocean wave. He said it as a fact, no room for debate or protest. 

You’re not going to leave me. 

The alarm bells returned. What was going on? 

He noticed that the man was jerking less and less in his spot on the ground. He was sheet-white now, all color and warmth bleached from his skin like details of a landscape in heavy fog. His chest labored up and down. Raul could imagine all too clearly that chest coming to a full stop, his body slumping to rest on the sidewalk forever. 

“Y-You’re dying, man! Please!” 

Raul’s heart was racing again, tumbling over and over in his body. This couldn’t be happening. He leapt to his feet, determined to ignore the man’s orders. He wasn’t going to stand by and watch someone slowly die on a sidewalk next to his flower shop. 

“Don’t…” It was a raspy whisper, petering out while an alien glaze filled those gray eyes. His hand trailed to Raul’s ankle and weakly gripped it. 

Truly, Raul had never felt fear like this. This sense of horror was choking him, painted everywhere he looked- in the man’s filmy eyes, the sidewalk stained dark red, the neighboring shops that were completely indifferent to the macabre scene. He didn’t know what to do. He just didn’t. 

A flash of soft blue caught his attention then, hiding behind the man’s flung open coat. A few forget-me-not petals peaked out, crushed beneath the noir fabric. Why had the man stuffed them in his coat? Weren’t you supposed to give someone flowers? 

He opened his mouth to voice these questions, but could only stutter frantically. 

“W-Wuh-Wuh...You...They’re…” 

The stranger, hand still clinging to Raul’s ankle, sputtered while staring grey portals up at him. 

“You gave them to me, Raul.” 

The last syllable of his name dropping from that stranger’s mouth jolted in him like a booming firework. He physically lurched back, the same breathless dread crawling across his lungs like cancer. 

His brain was whirling at a million miles per hour, neon lights bursting behind his eyelids. This couldn’t be happening. Was this a dream? 

“The forget-me-nots were for me. You know me.”

A hand wrapped around Raul’s throat, cutting off any breath he had left. 

“You remember.” 

He felt his windpipe collapse, crushed beneath brutal hands while his vision blotted in ink. The pain was lingering, like a stubborn, wet cough. A man’s calloused, tan hands rearranging his limbs, positioning his head to rest against the soil-covered floor of his flower shop. That floor had no traction. 

Red blood was spilling, spilling, spilling all over his poor white lilies, the shelf of forget-me-nots he had knocked into. It gurgled out of where the shears were plunged into his torso, his own hands scrabbling to grab the wound. 

His final, wheezing breaths harmonized the stranger’s movements as he gently placed a forget-me-not flower on Raul’s toiling chest. 

He remembered. 

He couldn’t forget.