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In Remembrance

By Judy Tynon

In Remembrance

In a remote village, a sickness broke out and decimated a quarter of its inhabitants within the span of a single moon cycle. Afraid of another outbreak, the villagers gathered to bury the dead with the exception of one family. As the last of their children to perish, Ankha could not bear to lay their little boy to rest with the dead of the rest of the village in the mass grave and instead held a proper ceremony despite the heat and inevitable smell.

Next to this village thrived a luscious meadow, various flowers swayed in the grass while vines stretched upwards and tangled into the branches of the trees at the edge of the field. Birds twittered their cheerful song in the dense foliage above as squirrels scampered across the grass darting from tree to tree, rabbits bounded across the pasture causing blue and yellow blooms to dance amongst each other before settling once more into the sway of the breeze. Hummingbirds and buzzing bees competed for the sweetest nectar while orange and red-tailed dragonflies seemed content to simply rest atop the sturdy coneflowers. Each day the blooms sang,

In both joy and rain

Our bright petals gaily reign

‘Til our blooms should wane.

I was still mostly asleep when I felt something wet drip onto my cheek and slide down. I wanted to ignore it, to stay wrapped up in the blissful playfulness of my dream, but it was cold and it continued to slide down my chin and lower still along my chest, sending shivers down my spine. I peeked through one eye and found I was shaded under a broad figure, the sun had already begun to rise and I was covered in the early morning dew. I yawned, unselfconscious, wiggling my toes in the soil as I came out from behind the shade. Those first morning rays of sunshine always felt the most invigorating. I basked in the warmth as the remaining drops of dew began to shrink, looking upon the figure that acted as my shade a moment ago I saw my big brother standing over me. He did this frequently, granting me a few more moments of rest than the others got, he’d said it was a public service as I desperately needed my “beauty sleep”. His teasing never failed to bring a smile to my face.

He adjusted to make more room for me as a breeze swept through the meadow, sending a second shiver up my spine. A monarch was already hard at work, fluttering around from flower to flower before it settled on my brother, Gabriel. I watched as it rested its delicate legs along his broad outstretched petals, opening and closing its orange wings, his bright red tone being the most vibrant of all the daisies in the field made him accustomed to these visits. My color was far more subdued, a soft muted pink that I always felt fell behind the beautiful hues that were spread across our patch of earth and along the rolling hills. Being a rose, I was teased for not having as sweet a scent as the other flowers boasted, but Gabriel would always console me, calling me his pink forester after his favorite butterfly and I would forget all about the teasing. Mother and father stood just a few stems over, less upright but lovely all the same. The butterfly flitted its wings and flew away and Gabriel shook out his remaining dew onto me, “Gabe!” I squealed as I attempted to dodge the cold drops. He smiled impishly while I could hear mother and father chuckling at his usual antics.

“Yes, dearest sister?” he asked, his tone overly sweet.

“If you’d be so kind, please refrain from dirtying me with your shower” I responded just as sweetly, making a show of flicking the dew off of one of my leaves in mock disgust while trying to hide my smirk. This got a chuckle out of him; we both knew he wasn’t dirty and I was only jealous of his beautiful color.

The morning passed as any other, the animals would brush against us on their daily explorations in the meadow, strong winds sent my brother and I into laughter while mother would gasp out “gracious me!” while doing her best not to lose a petal. Our friends and neighbors, bellflowers and poppies, would share whatever tidings they had received and we all luxuriated in each other’s company in the comfort of our almost-paradise. There was a shift in the atmosphere and the usual buzz of the meadow took on a different tone, blossoms began to whisper to one another and there was a general state of confusion but as we were rooted to our spots, we had to wait for the message chain to reach us.

“It’s a foreigner”, called out a foxglove.

A foreigner? There hadn’t been a foreigner here in months. I’d scarcely had time to process this when the large shadow was upon us, there loomed a woman dressed in rather gloomy shades and wearing a somber expression. This was not our first foreigner but when they visited, they were usually wearing expressions of glee as they tore us from our home. I cannot name how many of my friends had been ripped away from our meadow, the foreigners gathering them up in bunches and without so much as a chance to say goodbye. We did not know what happened once they were taken, but there were rumors that we were being used as some form of trophy or a display of affection, an odd practice seeing as how we could not survive long at all without our roots and therefore died quickly.

The woman’s eyes swept over us without seeming to actually see us, and then just as I feared, her eyes stopped on my brother. “NO!” , I cried as my vision tunneled but she would not hear me. Her form bent low as her fingers wrapped around his strong spine and snap! Sobs wracked my body, my eyes shooting to where my parents stood looking horrified, their cries echoing out over the others as the entire meadow began the mourning that would last for several weeks. I felt something brush against my torso and jerked my gaze back to see those despondent eyes just before feeling a searing pain race through my body with such intensity that I saw spots in my vision, and heard rather than saw the crunch of my stem as it was crushed under her fingers.

Severed, I could feel the acute throbbing of my essence as it struggled to take root, not yet realizing it would never take root again. The screaming continued and I turned to see I was bundled right up against my brother but he no longer towered over me, instead we were now the same height. I choked on a sob, relieved to have him near before shame slammed into me for feeling any solace in that moment. His face was contorted in pain and his spine was rigid as others were added to our group, it seemed it would never end and I prayed our parents would remain unpicked. The foreigner’s movements were so jarring that at some point I must have lost consciousness from the pain as voices rang out,

In both joy and rain

Our bright petals gaily reign

‘Til our blooms should wane.

When I awoke, I was no longer in the meadow. There was no lush expanse of blooms, nor their sweet honeyed fragrance to fill the air, no thrum of insect wings busy at work. The first thing I noticed was the silence, and then, the achy pulsing sensation at my middle that vibrated a steady rhythm throughout my body. The terrifying scene replayed in my mind as I began to recall what had happened and was jarred back to consciousness as panic replaced confusion, I cried out, “Gabriel!” . I noted a large group of us were still bunched together but our stems were surrounded in water at least; I continued to scan faces, contorting to try and spot that vibrant shade of red. “GABRIEL!” Others were shivering and moaning with their own injuries and with each shout I felt as though I might collapse into myself in agony. “Please! PLEASE, does anyone know where Gabriel is?!”

“here”, came a barely audible grunt and I angled myself toward the sound.

“Gabriel?” I craned my neck around an aster who was unsettlingly quiet and unmoving. Then I saw him. Gabriel’s stance was a bit awkward, and his expression was pinched but he was smiling. My heart seemed to shatter into a million pieces all over again because even though I knew we were now actively dying, my brother wore a smile just for me. I could not help the tears that fell any more than he could.

I am not sure how much time had passed but it couldn’t have been too long, the woman had returned, still wearing that same somber expression. Her own eyes looked to be sad and mournful as she approached us, as though we were the ones who had condemned her to die an early and painful death and not the other way around. Our group had grown rather quiet and I had been too afraid to look at those that surrounded me, save for my brother. The pained sounds and groans of these flowers I could tolerate, it was the silent ones that made me most fearful, unmoving like the aster that I’d had to peek around. The woman reached forward and gripped that same aster before pulling him towards her. I hadn’t been trying to look, in fact I was trying to turn away, but I was not fast enough. His face no longer showed signs of pain but instead his petals had wilted, as had his stem. Several others were selected this way, all of them silent as their limp forms were plucked from the bunch and tossed aside. The rest of us, still aching, were then pulled from the water which brought back the shooting pain, as we were smashed together once more and then bound.

We found ourselves transported to a place with more of these foreigners, these too were dressed similarly with their stormy shades of covering and miserable expressions, they appeared to be congregating around a single wooden structure. The woman’s movements slowed, almost as though she’d just realized how harshly she had been handling us. After she removed some of the other flowers that had succumbed, I was granted a place next to Gabriel. His petals had begun to curl at the edges; we’d lasted longer than I had expected but a coldness had started to creep up into my extremities making it difficult to move. The woman held us closely to her and approached the wooden structure, my tears began anew at the hundreds of brothers and sisters scattered around the structure in similar stages of decay, still lovely to be sure but their spirits broken. Carnations, lilies, hyacinths and hydrangea blooms sat propped or draped over the grains of wood, and then my eyes fell upon him. There lay a young foreigner enclosed in the case, only half of him visible. His eyes were shut and his smooth hands folded neatly across his middle, but they were the wrong color, or rather they were without color. There had been rumors that the foreigners used blooms to decorate their dead, however, the thought had seemed too cruel to believe and I had brushed it off as a fabricated scary story. It was not like the flowers were at fault for the foreigner deaths, so why would they kill needlessly simply for the sake of decoration. I looked over to my brother. He will not last much longer, I couldn’t help but think, my heart squeezing at his wilted form. He caught my gaze and smiled asking, “still think I’m the most handsome daisy here?” Not wanting to witness or accept his quick deterioration I turned back to the enclosed man, biting my cheek to keep from sobbing anew.

For this one adolescent they had slaughtered how many brothers and sisters, neighbors and friends? “I hope mom and dad are okay” I said to no one in particular but Gabriel responded.

“They are, they were still next to each other when we were taken” he swallowed before continuing, “if I’d blocked you better, you’d be safe too little forester”, he choked out.

“I’d much rather be here with you than those smelly daisies”, I tried to comfort him as tears prick my eyes.

“I’m a daisy” he said grinning.

“Oh, so you are”, I didn’t bother trying to hide the smirk.

He let out a small chuckle and immediately flinched, I’m not sure why but this amused me and then I giggled and was rewarded with a sharp pain at my middle that had me hissing. We went back and forth, taking turns giggling at the others painful response and then our own. It went on like this for awhile and I was thankful for it, the pain too. When we were able to collect ourselves, I looked around again, my body feeling stiffer as I struggled against the coldness that had taken over. I realized the rest in our bunch had gone eerily quiet when the woman stepped forward to lay us down on the wooden structure. It was the gentlest she had handled us and given the pain I knew Gabriel must be feeling, I was grateful for this mercy.

From this new angle atop the wooden formation, I could see the other foreign faces and did not like the feelings it stirred. I did not understand the unnecessary cruelty towards my kind, however, surrounded by this group of mourners I knew that they had experienced sorrow. Perhaps the boy had ingested hemlock, I knew the animals stayed away from the hemlock due to its toxins but perhaps the foreigners did not know of its content. That would explain the desire for so many flowers decorating the platform, a form of vengeance or a sacrifice perhaps to appease the dead.

“You know what? I think you really are the most handsome one here” I stated confidently, mostly to break the silence than anything else.My own pink petals had already begun to turn brown at the edges, I really did look like a pink forester now. That thought made my heart swell. Though it was still nothing compared to Gabriels radiant red, “Gabe?” I asked in his direction. I had begun to shiver from the cold that now consumed me, I had to strain with the last bit of strength I had left to look over at Gabriel and choked out a sob. He had stiffened completely, his eyes closed and his expression no longer pinched. His color was as beautiful as it had been in the meadow, but he was gone, and I was alone.

With no one else to grieve alongside me, I wept openly. The foreigners had been seated and now milled about the room, engaging each other in conversation as I wailed and threw curses at the woman who sealed our fate. Why him?! The meadow had been robbed of its most lovely flower and he had been robbed of a full life. Eyes swollen from the endless crying that wracked my now exhausted body, I calmed with only a constant shiver and numbness to keep me company. It was not long ago at all that I had been bathing in the golden streaks of sunlight, shivered as the dew melted away into the soil to quench my wriggling roots. Not long since I’d breathed in the fragrance and honeyed nectar that was a staple in their meadow. Closing my eyes I shut out the bleak foreigners and flower shaped corpses littering the space, instead wanting to fall into a sleep that would return me to the dream I’d been having before.

The only feeling that remained was an odd prickling sensation when I tried to wriggle the roots I knew were no longer there. Something wet was sliding down my cheek toward my chin and I could almost smell the morning dew. I breathed in deeply, warmth spread over my face and petals and my brother’s shadow took up a small corner of the rays I basked in as ladybugs crawled up a leaf. Hummingbirds and bees competed for the sweetest nectar and the stir of a breeze tickled my petals. I could hear the tinkling laughter of my mother followed by that of my father, and Gabriel. The whole meadow seemed to have joined in singing,

Our bright petals gaily reign

‘Til our blooms should wane.

Ankha had looked on her little boy, he did not look at all himself. Hands perched perfectly as was custom but he would have hated having to pose in such a manner. He would have insisted on keeping his wooden sword with him, clutching it to his chest, but she could not bear to part with one more thing that reminded her of him. Although people had come to visit, no one had gone near his body. The flowers decorating his coffin had done nothing to hide the putrid stink of death. She knew it was his body, but that body did not smell like her little boy. Three children she had lost, there would be no more as her heart could not bear any more pain. He used to love picking flowers for her and she would hang them upside down to dry. She’d always loved flowers, now, they broke her heart all over again when they wilted after being picked. She had to witness yet another death all over again, even so, she always made sure to take a bundle of flowers to his tombstone.

DMU Timestamp: September 05, 2025 20:59





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