I'll Leave Flowers

What if no one leaves flowers at my grave? Oh, dear, I'll be there.

Book of Little Nothings

I'll Leave Flowers

Draft 2

 

Tommy Leaf ran his long finger along the name carved into the gravestone of his once beloved wife, but now, she was gone rotting in the earth, and all the horror which his wife was had faded away each year he came to see at the grave. She wasn't a lovely woman only in the shape of her body while everything else about her was downright evil. She was a wounded dog biting anyone coming near her except for Tommy Leaf. For some odd reason, she loved him. For some odd reason, he loved her and kept her close to his heart.

                He placed the flowers in front of the grave, leading over kissing the name. He stood up, keeping his old-timey 50's style hat over his face. His coat collar was popped to help block out the cruel wind, which always seemed to be hanging out in the graveyard.

                He hated the cold.

                The cold hated him.

                He kept his gloved hands in the coat, not being able to keep warm. He stared down hard at a weathered stone wishing he could have kissed his wife once before she died. He was away for work when she passed away. They said she hung herself, but Tommy didn't believe it. She would never leave him in such a meaner, and if she did leave - then he was glad she was dead.

                Tommy shook his head, not believing the story. He couldn't dare believe the story they spoke about his wife. She wouldn't dare kill herself. She knew better.

                And yet, she still left him alone in the world. He had to face all of the demons in the night alone. She was no longer there to help him keep those devils at bay. People told him to get a new wife. There are other fish in the sea, and they were right, and Tommy tried.

                Boy, did he try to find a new wife on those mean streets, but time has changed him and changed those sweet little dolls out there. They were no longer the same creatures Tommy once knew, which he found hard to be enacted with trying to fall in love.

                People told him he was trying to get someone too young like his wife. She was ten years his senior, but the age never bothered her, and the age never bothered him. He enjoyed the youth in ways he couldn't tell other people. They wouldn't understand.

                It was a youth he didn't get when he was the age of his wife or those little dolls. His youth was full of terrors that would make people tear up if he uttered their truth to anybody. He had told the court-appointed therapist what had happened at the hands of his mother, sister, and father. The therapist cried for over an hour before Tommy could get her to calm down.

                After he told the truth to that lovely woman, she didn't ask the court to find him guilty of setting his family house in a blaze. They were trapped inside.

                Shortly after the fire, Tommy found his first wife, but she too died. It was the curse of his life. Everything he loved went up in flames.

                 He shook his head at the bitter wind smelling cigarette smoke and saw a young doll with black and red hair standing a few graves from him. He smiled at her loveliness behind those tears. He could see the truth of her beauty even if her face was locked in a mask of sorrow and shock. They're sitting in front of her were some flowers.

                Tommy left flowers there for the doll named Megan Dread. Every time Tommy came to see his wife which was becoming more often lately, he would find no one had left a flower for poor old Megan. He had read about her in the papers. She was a streetwalker, an old term for a prostitute, and had gone missing three weeks. At first, no one cared until they found her body in a park sitting on a bench with a note nailed to what was left of her chest. The note read, Poor Megan, came out to play, found the Devil, scream a bloody tune, and wanted to show y'all the thrills they had.

                The newspaper would only let their reader see a little of what happened to Poor Megan in black and white. She lost her toes and fingers still not found along with her tongue. The ongoing theory was the killer was eating some of Megan, which led Tommy to guess there was a lot more missing. They called Poor Megan the new Black Dahlia, fitting name he guessed, but he didn't know too much about the case of the Black Dahlia.

                He strolled over to the crying doll, making her look over at him.

                "Sorry, miss," he said, trying to smile big, "but I wanted to say it is a shame what happened to Poor Megan."

                "Thank you, sir," she said.

                "The papers said she like daisies," he said, pointing at the flowers.

                "Yeah, she did," she said, staring at him. "Did you leave those here?"

                "Yes, ma'am," he said, nodding back at his wife's nametag of stone. "It always feels wrong to see an empty gravestone with no flowers, ma'am."

                "Aw, thank you."

                "No big deal," he said. "Might I ask how you know Poor Megan?"

                "I’m her sister,” she said, and Tommy saw it in her face. The papers had a perfect picture of Poor Megan on the front, and this lovely doll almost looked exactly like her. There was little difference here and there, but Tommy found she was almost the same in person. He gasped a little at her taking a step forward stopping himself for a moment. 

                “I’m sorry for your lost,” he said.

                “Yeah, me too,” she said. “But I like to believe she is in a better place.”

                “Me too,” he said. “She might be up there with my wife laughing at us and drinking some good wine.”

                “Yeah.”

                The enrage sky roared at the storm to come above their heads. Tommy glanced upwards, seeing the rain was close to falling on them. He lowered his head to ask, “Might I walk you back to the parking lot, ma’am? It is getting late, and it is not wise to be out here alone.”

                “Uh, sure,” she said, not taking her eyes off the stone. She leans over, kissing it for a moment before walking with Tommy back to the car lot. They spoke little about the people they were leaving behind in the graveyard, but their ghosts seemed to follow them to the car.

                She stopped on the edge of the blacktop, not heading to the only other car in the place. It was late, a bit too late for anyone else to be around.

                “Thanks again for putting flowers at her grave.”

                “Not a big deal,” Tommy said. “She was scared no one would leave flowers for her.”

                “What?”

                “Poor Megan asked me to make sure there were flowers,” he said. “I am a man of my word.” The doll with Poor Megan’s eyes filled with terror as the scream boiled up from her throat, but Tommy jumped forward, planting a knife in her throat grabbing her tight to him. They both started to fall to the ground as he whispered, “I’ll leave flowers for you as well, doll.”