The left side of the basket flaunted far too many orchids. The small, woven handbasket appeared incontestably lopsided. You could see slivers of green foam through the foliage. This woman, in her cream-yellow hat and fleece coat to match, would simply NOT shut her trap. "Yes," Mrs. Offseason, "I apologize. I'll be sure to let the intern know of your complaints." Just stop running your cheesegrater of a voice across my ear canals, thank you very much.
Naturally, Olivia Digandi's train of thought wasn't nearly so long-winded. A simple repetition of shut up, shut up, shut up! would do well enough. How she fell into this line of work, (eventually climbed up to running the joint, of all things!) she would never know. If the many, vocal complaints and chafed cuticles seen through her younger years hadn't made things perfectly clear, Olivia had, at her time of hiring, despised plants and all things to do with the art. The dirt, the grubs, the seeds, the worms, the pollen, the pollination, the petals, the stems, the leaves, the stigmas, the crescents, the pyramids, the ovals, the compliments, the chipping of the packing foam, the dust, the insufferable DUST of it all! The irreparable damage to her nasal passageways, the constant ITCH, the DRAINAGE, the sneezing, the wheezing, the cough. And for what?
A fair distraction, that's what. A distraction. A solace Olivia managed to find among the fibres, among the colors and the gentle curves and the pricks of thorns and the soothing touch of the petals. The roses loved her like that secondary-school paramour of hers could never dream of loving, the daisies were silent in lieu of the cries of her distraught son and the ramblings of her delirious daughter, the oleander redressed the hairline fractures in her sanity so wrought there by the hammering of fists and hammers and skulls against brick walls. The lilies, the orchids, the violets, the carnations.
There was a layer of ash beneath her nails.
Olivia loved her husband, she loved her son, she loved her daughter. She loved them as only a human female with such connections could, and ONLY as such a woman. Beyond that? They were nothing but the filler flowers! The goldenrod! The limoneum! The baby's breath! Nothing more than furniture, than the dead flies on a windowsill. They were everything she never wanted. Why hadn't he just left her there to ferment in her own waste? Amsterdam may not have been her heart and soul since the year's end, but her heart and soul were certainly buried there beneath the concrete and the cum and the cheap champagne. So, what was she doing in that streetside floristry?
What was she doing in that mediocre watering hole of a town?
Who was she, again?
Mrs. Offseason, in a huff and a puff, stomped out of the shop with her claimed-inadequate basket dangling from her bony fingers.
Fri Jun 17, 2011 10:17 pm