Wildflowers

Of a mother and her child. Conceptual and relatively disturbing in the end- I think.

Wildflowers surround her- her eyes gazing to a time long since past in the great expanses of time and space. The vast greatness of night sky wraps itself around her, like a blanket filled with small specks of light no bigger than the glow of moonlight reflecting off her irises. Her breathing is slow, and just as gentle as the breeze flowing in from the sea; wisps of breath are visible in the cool air, and she watches them spiral toward the heavens, gradually vanishing. A second body is buried in the folds of her rippling skirt, a child- a girl.

            Grasped in the sleeping child’s hand is a small wooden biplane; the thing is worn and seems in a state of horrid disrepair. Her mother lifts the old toy and holds it up into the night sky, as if it was real and could take them away from this place. Like her hopes and dreams, it is not real, and it cannot take them anywhere. She sighs and sets the toy back in her daughter’s hands, gently stroking the girl’s velvety black hair that mirrors her own. The child has grown here, in isolation from humanity, and shall never meet this society that still somehow holds her fate. A world her mother fled is forever locked, oh so secretly, in the creation of this baby girl. What is a biplane? She will never know; she cannot know.

            The dreamtide -a mystic thing, alive within its own right- flows onward without a hint of stopping this night. The lost mother’s eyes follow it across the empty space of the galaxy; if she could only see what it had tried to say…but such is life, and she cannot. Sleep pulls at her heart, lack of it only allowing you to survive so long, until she must finally give in and let dreams take her to the dreamtide. Here she comes across things of her past, things that terrorize her mind to the point of tears.

            Awoken by a force unknown, the little girl’s eyes flash open. Unable to return to her state of sleep, she clambers to her feet and stretches, holding the biplane high above her head. Feeling dawn rising near the shoreline, she casts one final sidelong glance at her mother before running off to the sandy shore. Warnings of a mother’s fear go unheeded as the child tosses her plane up into the light morning air, chasing it down the beach in sweet ignorance. 

            A sudden loss of warmth near the woman’s leg gradually brings her senses back to earth and panic grips her. Her hands slap down where her child should be and she looks around, hoping, desperately hoping, that she’s still nearby. Upon not finding the child’s white-clad form, she stands and looks around attempting to wake herself enough from the horror of her dreams that she can find her baby. Her movements are groggy, and she stumbles a few steps before finally gaining her balance and walking. This isn’t the first time the girl has vanished, and her mother almost instantly knows where she’s gone to play.

            Gently, the fair-skinned mother steps upon a rock near one of the tide pools scattered across the shore; her daughter casts her tiny plane out over the water, entirely oblivious to her mother’s presence. Lips parting, the woman takes in a breath to call her daughter- that call is never heard. The day was calm and they weren’t abnormal, these waves, they were just like any other that morning. As the tide came in, waves would crash down, a fact of life. Whatever the reason, things would change in the matter of a few seconds.

            You see- when her plane fell into the shallow waters of the ocean, she went in after it, afraid of losing her only toy. That was the instant her mother called; it was also the instant a wave curled up - blotting out the cry - and came down over her small body. Her mother cries out and sprints down to where her child once stood, looking urgently for the small girl, caught in a riptide and unable to resurface. Another wave slams down against the child just as she manages a choking breath; her mother is thrown back by the wall of water and sent sprawling across wet sand. With a hurried act of desperation, the woman lunges for her daughter’s arm, pulling back against the current as hard as she can. The child is let free from the water’s grasp, sobbing and gagging, her mother hurrying her away from the sea, barely in control of even herself.

            Before even a partial word of comfort can be given, a wave - that perfectly normal wave - batters against the woman’s back, and she falls instantaneously to what could have been her death. Her skull collides with a set of rocks jutting from the damp sand, the sickening ‘crack’ resounding in the final thoughts of her child. Unable to leave her mother, the girl screams and pulls at her, water level rising with each growing wave. One more wave and that same child has been washed away - everything she was, to be destroyed in those few minutes beneath the surface, she could not save herself. She needed her mother.

            Close to drowning, the woman jerks to life, choking on water, and then, almost immediately, resorts to exasperated screaming sobs. Her daughter’s name is barely audible among her cries, and her frantic searching is in vain. Blood streams across her neck and shoulder, she sobs again, burying her face in her hands - hands she will forever blame for the death of a little girl, her daughter, her only child. Oppression has caused her heart to sink, and her will to live passed on along with the girl. In an attempt to break free from the horrors of mankind, her life has been single-handedly destroyed in a matter of minutes.

            As she drags herself away from the rocks, a gentle wave knocks something against her. Slowly, deliberately, she turns to look upon the object, eyes as blank and dull as a clouded day. Softly bumping against her side is a small wooden biplane, worn in appearance, and of unknown design. Lifting the object, she swallows a cry, and stares longingly out to sea for the child she’ll never have returned. She stumbles down the beach, her life now as meaningless as it was when first given her, and in her hand is that toy biplane - just as useless.