The Flower Box - From TWISTED STORIES & TWISTED STUFF by Jill Gatsby

Here is today's Twisted Story about a Flower Box with a mirror inside that makes up the difference between life and death.

The Flower Box - ON EBAY - 

 

It might have appeared to be nothing special to the common passerby.  It was just some plain box with red and yellow flowers painted on it.  But Rocha Abrue saw something else in the acrylic brush strokes that no one else could.  She could see the story through her eyes and she could feel its history in her veins.  It was if it had always been a part of her even though this was the first time she had ever seen the box. 

 

She sucked at the tips of her blond hair and studied the rectangular object. It lay on the floor in the middle of the empty room, in the middle of the empty house at the end of the street.  She focused her gaze to the yellow blooms on the box.  They were mustard flowers and this excited young Rocha to no end.  She recalled tasting the fresh, spicy and bitter little buds earlier that summer and instantly she felt herself salivating with desire to try it again.   Yes, this painting on the box was delightfully tangled, morbid and sordid in a way that confirmed Rocha’s suspicions.  There were deep dark secrets laying in wait beneath.  She was young and she was more naïve than the rest of the world, but she had the focus of a wild animal in the midst of the hunt.  She steadied her gaze once more upon the box and the painted flowers, especially the bitter ones.

 

They were keeping company with blood red anemones from the Shokeda Forest in Israel, thought she.  She’d never been, but half the kids in her school were from Israel. They’d told her all about the anemones and how they came in all the different colors of the rainbow.  But the flowers in this painting didn’t resemble colors from a rainbow. The reds were dark and worn and tired.  The background was a putrid green and it seemed as if the flowers were actually preparing to die.  Perhaps they were trying to escape from something.  This is what Rocha Abrue thought as she wiped her finger on the pink frill of her dress and she looked around for something to drink.  There was nothing to drink in this empty house, in this empty room with this bland looking flower box.  She brought her attention back to the box.  She spoke out loud, “Flowers never escape. Do they?”

 

  She was sure that all plants simply accepted their lot in life just as so many people did. She thought very grown up she’d ever met lived in resolute boredom.  It reminded her of the flowers in the painting that were withering over and dropping dead without even a whisper. 

 

This was an outrage to Rocha Abrue.  She thought to herself that if she were those anemones or even the mustard flowers she would leap out of the painting on that ugly box and scream at the world, “How could you portray me this way?  How dare you!  Put me back in the forest where I belong and for god sake, get rid of this putrid green!” 

 

But Rocha Abrue did nothing of the kind.  She wanted to scream for the flowers, she wanted to scream for the box.  She wanted to scream for herself and her short little life. 

 

         Rocha Abrue had been born with what everyone around her called a birth defect.  Half of her face was black and the other half of her face was as white as snow.  It was as if the angels had decided to make a mime doll and Rocha Abrue was the poppet come to life.  She was half sweet and half sour.  That’s what her mother had always told her.  That is until last night when a five hundred pound prehistoric bird scooped Rocha’s mother out of the swimming pool and flew off into the sun with her. 

 

It had happened so fast that nobody else saw the bird, except Rocha Abrue.  They said it was a tornado, but Rocha Abrue knew the truth.  Sure, it didn’t make sense that some prehistoric bird flew in from the past and took her mother, but it also didn’t make sense that a tornado came down their suburban little sidewalk, hopped the fence and took mommy away to the land of Oz forever.

 

And who would go swimming when there was a tornado around anyway, Rocha Abrue thought.  No, she was sure it was a giant yellow prehistoric bird that had taken her mother and it was the same reason she found herself alone with this box, in this big empty house, in this big empty room at the end of the street. 

 

So she did the one thing that she was sure she should never do.  NEVER open the box.  It was the rule.  She’s couldn’t recall whose rule it was, but she knew she wasn’t supposed to open it. On the other hand, she was on her own.  The only acceptable answers had to be inside the box.  Rocha Abrue could not resist. 

 

She opened the box and laid eyes upon a blond girl who looked just like her.  And the difference between looking at yourself in the mirror and what Rocha Abrue saw this; her ‘self’ started talking to her. 

         “Who are you?  And why did you open the box?”, said the girl in the box.  Rocha stared at the girl in the box in amazement.  She closed the box and opened the lid once more to see if the girl would go away, but when she opened the box, the little girl with the identical mime face like hers replied, “You there!”

“Me?” said Rocha a bit both alarmed and intrigued.  “I’m not talking to myself!” said the little girl.

         “But who are you and why do you look like me,” Rocha asked. 

The little girl in the mirrored reflection in the box answered back, “Who am I?   I’m you!” 

But Rocha knew she couldn’t be.  It was impossible.  She was there in the big room in the house and she had the box in her hands now and she was Rocha Abrue.  This girl on the other side of the glass wasn’t real.  She couldn’t be.  But if she was real then Rocha had some questions. 

         “If you’re me than what are you doing in this box?”

“Mama put me here to keep me away from you.”  Said the little girl in the reflection.  “But if you’re me then please tell me how can anyone keep us apart?  We’re the same person!”

“Same person, different times” said the reflection. 

 

Rocha often considered if this world had different dimensions.  She didn’t call them dimensions because she didn’t even know what dimensions where, but she knew what a portal was and that’s how she felt sometimes.  As if she had been slipping in and out of portals since the day she’d been born.   

“Portals” cried Rocha Abrue.  “We’re the same person in different portals of time!  Is that it?” 

The reflection smiled and said it was true and that was the gift that Rocha had earned because she’d had the courage to open the box. 

         “But I wasn’t supposed to open the box” said Rocha. Her reflection replied, “Sometimes we have to do things other people think we shouldn’t.  I say if it hurts no one then sometimes it’s a good idea to think for yourself.” 

Rocha thought about this astounding new discovery and she had an epiphany.

“Is she there with you now? My mother” asked Rocha.  “She’s our mother” the reflection replied, and then continued, “And yes, Rocha, she’s her with me now.  Do you want to join us?”

         Join you, thought Rocha.  She couldn’t understand how she could join them.  Her mother was gone.  The big bird had carried her off and that meant she was  … dead. 

 

She couldn’t join either one of them.  The box must be evil.  She had been right to never want to open this box.  She slammed the box shut and sat in the middle of the room.  She thought about her mother and what it would be like to never see her again. 

 

She thought about the little girl who looked like her and claimed to be her somewhere else in time.  She pondered her own existence and what would become of her and the other little girl if they came together.  Both of their faces were half black and half white. Rocha’s left half was white and her reflections left half was black.  They were vice versa. The question that perplexed the surprised little girl was if she did go join her reflection and her mother would she end up black all over or white all over? 

 

And then of course she had to decide if she wanted to be all black or all white.  She didn’t righteously know.  She liked being black on her right side.  It kept her skin cool and she didn’t burn on that side at all.  She loved how soft her black skin felt and her white skin was so sensitive and always seemed to have bumps.  She was sure she’d rather be black any day of the week, but her blond hair didn’t seem to match.  As she thought about all of this she noticed the light was dimming outside and that darkness was coming.  She had decisions to make and she was sure that after the sun went down she would be out of choices forever.

 

Slowly, she opened the box this time and she was blinded by green light with shades of blue streaking through.  She felt a burning in her lungs and something large and yellow was upon her.  She couldn’t see clearly through her eyes, and everywhere around her there were red anemones and mustard flowers.  They were sinking past her and some even tangled themselves in her hair.  She couldn’t breathe and her eyes felt as if they were packed with mud.   She struggled to breathe in and instead felt blackness and numbness. 

 

It took four minutes for Rocha Acrue’s mother to resuscitate her after she’s been pulled from the swimming pool.  She’d been playing next to it when the tornado hit.  Her mother threw her into the deep end and dragged her to the bottom to save them from the twister that wanted to rip their very souls out of them.  The yellow towel that was speckled in Rocha’s mother’s blood is what she awoke to.  She wailed in grief at her loss and wailed at the angry sky that had sent the monster that took her mother.  And all the while she screamed and screamed she heard her mother whispering in her ear, “Shhh now.  I’m here.  I’m always here.” 

 

Rocha Abrue turned and discovered she was laying in her mother’s arms and her mother was very much alive.  Rocha held onto her mother for deal life and exclaimed, “Oh, mama I’ll never let you go!” 

 

Down at the end of the street a little house that once was now rests in a pile of rubble.  There is nothing left of these sticks and bricks.  And across from the rubble lying under an oak tree branch there is a little flower box.  You aren’t supposed to open it, but if you do, it could safe your life.  Are you ready? 

 

This is the Box and if the story grooves you then you could be the owner of the original flower box that saved Rocha Acrue. 

It's on ON EBAY this week and then it will be gone forever!  

 

Author's Note

Please be kind, however if you have a SOLUTION has to how to improve these short stories - please let me know your thoughts ASAP!

I have vowed to write one short story a day on my blog for 365 days - and to put each subject up for auction on Ebay, to boot! That being said, I'm a little limited on rewriting abilities and short of editors. However, I must thank Theodore Thederahn and Christina Buchanan for being my editors, my muses and my precious friends while I embarked on my first 6 short stories. I have only but 300 left to go! Whoa Nellie!