Cracked Tile

First attempt. Be brutal! Also, please forgive the over-bearing pretentiousness of it, its been rolling around in the back of my head for a while now, and I wanted peoples reactions to it.

We begin with the Flower.

 

It is, oh most original of all images, a daisy. Not just that though, but everything a daisy should be. And everyhting a daisy shouldn't be. Everything that a daisy is. It is not beautiful, beauty is not something you can attribute to something to this, so pure, honest, flawed- Third petal from the centre is torn, flecks of green still marr the young yellow sun of the disk. Imperfect, yes, but better for it. What are all the orchids, all the roses of the world to this one white/yellow swirl?
    But where, the cry goes up, can a thing of such ridiculous import be found? Some plain of amazement and delight surely! Eden perhaps? Or the Elysian Fileds? Well, close, but the order for the cubans will have to be deferred. This little flower, this little joke of whatever Gods were knocking around in the elemental lab on that day would not be found in the finest garden in all the world. Not even in some well tended park in Anywhere U.S.A. where a committee of dry fiftysomething virign decide on bed plans for next spring. No, this tiny bit of punctuation in the story of the universe has been given the privilege of gracing a broken patio tile in a slummy overgrown back garden.

 

The patio is grime-worn, rust from the decaying furniture zig-zagging over it like arcane forms, spelling out a message of neglect. Thistles, ivy, weeds of every size and description encroach from every direction in a wild tangle. Clearly, this place has been devoid of any care for a very long time. The dangling, ill-looking plants seem bowed under the weight of years. A lonely place. An empty place.

 

Well, not completely empty. Turn your attention now to the house that this garden opens from. Dirty red bricks adorn the windows and frame the french windows overlooking the long-forgotten patio. But their decaying cement has begun to crumble and drop its load. As we watch, one brick falls from its place and hits the earth with a leaden thud, like clay hitting the lid of a casket. Then almoast silence, except for the brief snatches of conversation that come through the gaping jaws of the smashed upstairs window, glass shards still hanging in at crazed angles, like the teeth of some fairy-tale witch.

"....promised you wouldn't!" shrill woman's voice, angry and indignant, but under that a foundation of fear.

"Oh f****n.........." gruff, groggy voice of a man.

"I told you, told you you'd be out on your a*s if you started up again! I wasn't lying!"

"Who are you to tell me what to do? I look after you and her! I didn't have to y'know! I've given up f*****g everything so that you two could be happy! And you won't even give one little thing for myself!"

"It'll kill you! And you know what, we don't need you, we'll be grand on our own, we-"

The dull smack of a fist hitting flesh.

"Shut up." It is said non-chalantly, almost lightly, but ominious undercurrents run beneath it.

"Now, I'm going outside for 5 minutes. I want you and her out of her by the time I get back. Out of MY house. If I so much as see you again, I will kill you." Not a threat, but more stated as a matter of fact, like a weather report.

Shortly afterwards, a man comes out of the back door of the house. To call him unhealthy looking would be an understatement. This man has the look of a week-dead corpse, but for the insane sparkle in his eyes. He is thin to the point of insubstaniality, but posesses that kind of wiry strength which is the sole domain of skinny, mean-minded men. Long, matted hair growing into a beard with flecks of foamy saliva caught in it. Mucus running from each nostril in slimy rivulets. He sits down on the bottom step  with his arms wrapped around his knees. Observe, if you will, the needle tracks on his arms, reminiscent of a childs join-the-dots picture, pretty portrait of his own personal demons. He moves his head from side to side, mutter incoherently. His jangling, disocrdant thoughts can almoast be heard echoing around the slap-board fence, reverberating and rebounding, growing ever larger and more twisted, intertwining and spearating from each other until the all come together in a screeching, jarring cresendo. He gets up. He walks back through the back door. We hear the sound of a drawer being torn open, and the contents spilled onto the floor. Something is picked up.

 

Now, sounds from the hall of the house.

"We're leaving." Womans voice, weak with terror, accompanied by a child's frightened sobs.

Silence.

 

Then,

Two quick rapports from a handgun.

 

Silence again.

 

Another brick falls from the window frame.