Flowers of Joy
a short story
— — Witness the field. Kept with tender soil and sown with a combined love; of lilies and iris, the peony, the dahlia; of poppies and marigold, the daisy, the daffodil. The pride of Aster Penrose. A fine hobby for Alma Penrose. The husband and the wife.
— — Nurtured with the care reserved for parenthood, the field flourished. Watered and fed. Pruned and processed. All held to the ground save for the poppy seeds and the daffodils. The seeds baked to their delight. The daffodils Aster’s preferred ornament. A way of love enmeshed in petals. And when the passion of resentment rose, there was always the field.
— — Here days went by the months and years, and in age the pain multiplied. Never under the weight of marriage but of physical wasting, which confined Aster to a chair when his bones began to rot. Every step was a risk, from the kitchen to the field, and after many an attempt to maintain the good order, he gave up all hope. The pain would overtake him and he would call for Alma and when the pain would overtake her, she would call an ambulance, where upon arrival an EMT would administer a dose of morphine to Aster. Enough to calm and cart him to the hospital. There he would growl and hiss, snarl and shriek in wait for death over a week of observation. Then the days would shed away and they would send him home with a pocket full of pills, to continue…