Moloch closes a book and walks from his study ordained with his various achievements as a surgeon. It is 3pm and like the day before, he heads down the main hall, through the foyer, and onto the east portico that overlooks his vast garden. With little to occupy his mind, his garden has become his most obsessive hobby. He beams with pride as he overlooks the garden, brimming with red and white roses. His garden sits adjacent to a beautiful lake and hidden by a marble wall, which simultaneously hides the low income apartment complexes that have sprouted around his elaborate multi-acreage estate. All of the apartments are overrun kids, tall grasses, and dandelion weeds, the latter of which has become the bane of his and his rose garden’s existence.
His hand shakes uneasily as he grips the golden railing and walks down into the garden. He reaches out, with his hand shaking, and plucks out a few of the struggling yellow leaves of the roses. While he works, a breeze blows through his coat jacket from the south. He looks up to see the seeds from hundreds of dandelions fly up above, circling him in a cyclone, and seemingly targeting his roses, settle onto the ground of his garden. He shuffles backward, trying to make note of each seed that has fallen, an impossible task. He meticulously pinches the dandelion seeds, one by one, from their fallen place, and snuffs them into his coat pocket.
After two weeks go by, at 3pm, moloch makes his daily trip to the garden. He sees the heads of some missed dandelion seeds that have covertly sprouted among his rose garden. Agitatedly, he shuffles back inside to his study, grabbing his old forceps from the second draw. Making his way back down to the garden, he clutches the forceps as strongly as the Parkinson’s clings to his ailing body. He shoves his shaky fingers into the forceps, carefully balances himself onto his knees and feebly places the forceps to the crown of the first dandelion while giving a tug. The earth releases the dandelion plant, and again he shoves it into his pocket while moving to the next. This time, the earth is more generous, offering the roots that fight for existence through the rose soil. He falls back slightly, catching himself on his free hand, and steadies himself back straight again. He places this whole plant beside him and works to get himself in a stand. He is almost up when he steps on the legs of the dandelion weed and falls backward, hitting his head on the bricks below.
2 weeks go by, and a woman from next door knocks at the front door repeatedly. She is tired and annoyed, but cleaning this estate pays for most of her bills, so she is relentless. She makes her way to the east of the estate where an iron railing separates her from the main garden. She presses her face into the iron rails, and sees the beautiful white and red rose garden dotted by yellow dandelions. Her gaze travels to find a figure, slumped between the beautiful roses, dandelions growing from his pocket. She turns and walks away defeated, determined to find another way to pay her bills.
“Watch your head,” Brooke calls out from the crawl space door to her daughter. Rose was climbing into the attic to retrieve an old ballet costume that was her sisters. “What?” Rose called back to her mother, turning her head to look back. “A beam!” Her mother shouted back, but it was too late. A thud, a crumble to the floor, and rose held her head as she folded into herself quietly sobbing as her mother slunk away to leave her there.
When rose’s mother was pregnant with Lilly, she hadn’t yet received word she was having a girl when she purchased the ballet outfit from the back of a little boutique off park ave. She just had a feeling, a feeling of happiness exploding inside her. She was right of course, and her happiness seemed to double each second she was with her Lilly. She and her husband would often just stare at her creation, content to stay like this forever, but of course, nothing is forever.
“A beam.” Rose’s mom was suddenly cast out from her daydream as she turned to the doctor. “What?” She asked the doctor. He sighed, “you asked how the radiation works, it uses a beam.” “Oh,” she whispered as she turned back to look at Lilly, her husband rubbing her back. Lilly was wrapped in a blanket and snuggled into her mother’s lap, smiling with so much joy, completely unaware of her own circumstances.
Lilly never got to wear her ballet costume. Shortly after her death, her mother instructed her husband to tuck it away in the attic along with all her hope for happiness. Grief burgeoned inside her heart. Even after the birth of her second daughter, Brooke struggled to feel happiness again. Post partum depression consumed her, she didn’t bond to Rose in the way she had bonded with Lilly. Rose wasn’t a smiling baby. In fact, she had a grumpy cat look that even strangers felt compelled to tease her about. Brooke found herself treading water in life, just trying to get through.
As she grew, she learned to smile, but Brooke wondered if she was truly happy or just learned the behavior to smile when it was appropriate. It didn’t matter to her, because she was just as sad, and had her mind made up that none of them would ever feel happiness ever again.
A beam of light shined onto the purple curtains that hung on the stage of Rose’s dance school. As the curtains opened, 3 tiny ballerinas giggled as they pranced around the enormous stage. The audience cooed and laughed while they danced. Brooke squinted her eyes to get the clearest picture of her daughter. She could hardly believe it, because she had never seen her daughter emit so much joy.
“A beam,” Rose’s mother whispered to her husband, Banks. “What?” He asks while still watching his daughter. “Look at her smile, I’ve never seen her so happy!” Banks quietly chuckled, never taking his eyes off Rose. Rose’s mother took Bank’s hand and tucked her head onto his shoulder. She sighed a big breath and exhaled her sadness into the ocean of laughter and applause. A tiny poke of happiness pierced into Brooke’s heart in that moment, and in the next second it grew a bit.
A ballerina costume. A beam.
Need to add ending lol
Mother rushes into the bridal sweet clutching our only maternal heirloom; a slightly discolored but intricately laced mid-length vail is crushed by two fists of ivory complexion. My mother is no stranger to frowning, but the corners of her mouth are draped down her face almost as fierce-fully as her plunging neckline. “Don’t panic,” she blurts out. I stare at her questioning, though mostly emotionless, as my mother is not one to have problems of real concern. My mother is one of those breeds of women that can take anything harmless and make it a mortal enemy with a swiftly spun tale. My interest in her information is very short lived, as it ought to be, and instead my eyes focus in on the clenched vail and the creases that will no doubt need to be steamed again before I can wear it. “What is it, mom?” I ask in slight frustration, still looking down at those clenched white fists. She begins, “I went down to the car to get your vail and those awfully painful red shiny pumps I NEEDED to have for this day, you know the ones that I was supposed to break in but I couldn’t because they were too painful..” “MOM!” I cut her off, too enervated to participate in her lengthy explanation. “Well that doesn’t even matter,” she starts again without missing a beat. “When I went to the car, I saw Thomas getting out of the limo, and before I could signal a hello, the wedding planner was getting out after him,” she exhales whatever breath she had left. “Okay.. and..?” I ask quizzically. “Oh that’s not all!” She continues, “the wedding planners dress was on backwards!”
More on that: The dress is a revers plummeting dress and isn’t on backwards. Her lips tingle when the one she loves kisses another. Her lips tingled that day. She ignored it. It was actually tingling because her first love was kissing someone else. She still loves… HIM.
