Dating : Two Coins for a Flower

The little boy rubbed the two coins together in his palm, generating a faint scraping sound he’d never heard before. He had never possessed this many coins before, had never even seen such a fortune, until this morning as he’d spotted them in the dust while he watched the plant merchants setting up their wares.

Every year during green season they would come, these merchants, to this same clearing in the woods, and set up their tables or makeshift booths in a misshapen circle, and people would come from distances the boy couldn’t even fathom to peek at the wonders of the flower show. Many years ago, or what felt like a whole lifetime to the little boy, his father had brought him here. Together they’d picked out an armload of flowers, a rainbow more magical than the ones in the sky, flowers to bring home to the boy’s mother. That’s the last memory he has of his father, or of his mother being happy.

The first table he approached was arrayed in monstrous yellow flowers, each bigger than the boy’s head, each petal the length of one of his arms. “I would like to buy some flowers for my mother.” He wanted his voice to sound adult, and serious, but he was just a little boy.

The merchant, previously distracted by the crumbling pages of an ancient book, flashed an avuncular smile. He wasn’t much taller than the boy but much wider, and his disposition, while pleasant and inviting, had been creased into his face so deeply it looked like he could be unfolded. “You do, now? How sweet, how wonderful. My flowers are enchanted not just with size but with bounty, and even these cut specimens will produce seeds that will blossom for all of eternity.”

The boys looked them over. It would be hard to carry one of these home, let alone more than one, and they were all the same color, a pale yellow, like a fruit that has not finished ripening.

“Are there other colors? Red?”

The merchant shook his head. “Only this. Bango Blossom, it’s called.” His smile had faded.

The little boy, who knew he would not be little for much longer, offered a shy, apologetic smile, and stepped hastily to the next table. The flowers there were arranged in earthenware vases, and of the flowers themselves, each turquoise petal appeared to have been carefully peeled back to reveal red stamens, flopping like a dog’s tongue. The boy had never seen anything like them.

“I’m so glad you came to my table!” the next merchant said, reaching out to touch the boy’s shoulder, but she doesn’t smile. She had gray hair held in braids, reaching down to her ankles, the braids then bound together with vines that were turning brown. Her demeanor made the boy uneasy for reasons he didn’t understand. “Pull one from a vase.”

The boy did as he was told, and as soon as he touched the stem, the petals deepen their hue. It’s quite lovely, and sparked a memory in the boy’s head: his father’s smile, so long ago.

“Now squeeze.”

The boy wanteds to step away from her, but he is used to doing what adults tell him to do, so he clenched the stem in the fist that didn’t contain the coins, and when he did, the flower fired out a tiny dart that hit the table and vanished in a magnesium flash. He smiled.

“Your little friends will love these,” the merchant exclaimed. The little boy thought it felt somehow like a threat, and he looked up at her, confused.

“I only want to buy flowers for my mother,” he said, cautious.

“Try the next table,” she said, waved in some direction, and turned away.

The next merchant the boy came upon was younger, but more stern, and he stopped the boy from touching any of the delicate flowers he’d laid across his sturdy wood table. “These buds are magical, so be careful, kid.”

“Magical?”

The merchant sighed. “I’m busy, kid. How much money you got?”

The boy held out his fist and opened his palm. The coins stuck to him, the wet metal exuding a strange odor. The man laughed, not a little but cruelly.

“Look kid, the only thing those coins are going to buy here is pity. Not just me. You should go home and get your parents if you want to buy something.” He turned his attention to another customer.

The little boy nodded, stunned, and tried to smile, but his lip quivered. He hurried back into the forest, angry at himself for coming here, so silly of him. He’d ruined the memory of that place, the last memory of his father, and there was no way to get that back. He didn’t know what money was back then, or whether it was something they had, but all the merchants let his father browse their products and nobody yelled at them. They’d bought all the flowers the boy had picked out and brought them home and his mother had loved them all, and she’d loved them all. Now it was ruined.

The little boy stopped underneath a tree near his house, and sat in the dirt and cried. He wouldn’t be little for much longer, and then he was sure they would take him away like they took his father, and then his mother would never smile again, and all he wanted to do was make her smile.

Through the blur of his tears, he spotted something he’d not seen before underneath a thicket of brambles. A pale purple, maybe periwinkle flower lay flat against the ground, unable to penetrate the web of branches above it, unable to stand up straight. He crawled closer to it. This flower was not the size of his head, not even the size of his empty palm, and its petals were ragged and certainly neither enchanted nor magical, but the little boy thought it was the most beautiful flower he’d ever seen.

With a sharp rock in hand, he reached under the brush and dig out the whole plant that had produced this perfect flower. He would bring it to his mother, and they would replant it together, somewhere where they could see it every day. He left the two coins in its place, for some other little boy to find.