even after they have been stepped on
Even here, even in the middle of winter on an island that takes, and takes, and takes without care for who it takes from, his flowers still grow.
Ice covers their petals like a veil, weighing down their crowns until they bend on their long stalks to kiss the ground. He wonders, as he watches them stiffen and grow still, as the ice spreads higher and higher so that they look more like crystal sculptures than living plants, if the snow is preserving them, or killing them. And for a moment, he can’t help but think that there is no difference between the two.
He almost hadn’t come here - it feels wrong, standing in the snow and the cold and looking out across a field that should have been sandy. The trees are pine trees now, but when he looks at them from a distance he thinks they could still be palms. If he closes his eyes he can still see the sunlight slanting in between the trees, limning the tropical flowers in a gold so bright it hurt his eyes to look at. And he can still imagine the vines trailing after him like snakes, and the way the ferns seemed to watch him in a way that was both adoring and scheming.
When he opens his eyes he sees it all, as clearly as if he were still standing in the sandy meadow.
But then it drains away, fading bit by bit until the snow bleeds back through. And then the flowers shiver against his ankles, and he doesn’t even think to look.
There are lights dancing shyly in the distance, golden flames like arms reaching out as if they’re waving, beckoning for him to follow. A part of him wants to - more than anything he wants to, to let himself follow them willingly into whatever unknown they have planned for him - but he doesn’t. He only watches them as they drift closer, and closer, and closer, flickering like a miniature sun in the middle of a clouded island.
“What are you?”
His voice sounds loud, even when he whispers. The light nearest to him pauses, trembling in the air as if it’s contemplating his question. But it doesn’t answer him, the same way he doesn’t follow it. The two only stare at each other, like neither one belongs here.
@lyr
