Daisy

When you think of a garden, typically you think of a little flower bed in front of a house. But, the garden wasn’t any ordinary garden. It wasn’t a single bed of flowers. It was a sea of rainbows sprouting from the ground, rolling over hills and dipping through valleys. It clung to the soil, roots buried in the earth. It stretched up miles and miles into the sky, like hands stretching toward the endless expanse of blue. Every morning, the sun kissed the earth, bringing the flowers and trees to life. They danced in the wind in an endless dance until the moon appeared in the darkening sky, sending them off to sleep. Animals chattered. Streams babbled. Wind whispered. It was paradise; untouched and pure.1

A tiny figure stood by the edge of a stream, crouching, peering into its depths. She studied her reflection with curiosity, then stood up and brushed off her knees. She skipped through the long, green grass that nearly consumed her small body. Golden curls bounced around her head, upturned towards the sky; her face was pale and beautiful like the slumbering moon.2

Flowers of all varieties, shapes, sizes, and colors flew by her. But she had no eyes for the sights that would have made any one else stare in awe. She continued skipping through the fields of flora and fauna, and finally skidded to a halt.3

An imperfect ring of trees closed off a small, oval clearing from the rest of the garden. These trees, just like their brethren in the rest of the garden, reached for the heavens. Their oak trunks were ancient, old, gargantuan; they were as old as the universe itself, standing sentry to the alcove they hid. Between the two largest trees was a person-sized gap, the largest between the trees. The girl touched the tree to her right, her fingers just gracing the bark. Then a small sigh pushed past her lips, and she wrapped her thin arms around the tree’s impossibly wide trunk.4

The girl walked between the two trees with ease. Instead of being enveloped in darkness, she was bathed in buttery yellow and dappled green light. The interlocking branches and leaves above allowed no chinks of light to shine through, but there was light inside. Button-sized dots floated lazily around the inside of the tower-like structure, illuminating the entire inside. Pockets of light nestled between leaves and branches, changing around whenever they felt like it. In the center of the uneven ring was a glowing circle that did not move. It was about as wide as the girl was tall. It was as if the sun never stopped shining on it, though its rays did not show through. In the center of the circle was a single flower.5

The girl bent down, kneeling before the single flower. She brushed its white petals, and nuzzled her nose into the yellow pollen in the center. Carefully plucking the daisy from the earth, she held it close to her chest, and inhaled deeply, her eyes fluttering closed.6

When her eyes opened again, she was still holding the daisy, but she was no longer in the garden. Instead, she was in a room with pale purple walls. Dim light filtered through the window. The gray dawn broke over a woman curled in her bed. Her long, wavy blonde hair was splayed about her. It hung lank and lifeless. Her skin was drawn, unhealthy. There were dark circles around her puffy eyes. In her arms, she clutched a teddy bear with a red ribbon around its neck. She’d fallen asleep crying, the first time she’d even slept in days.7

The little girl walked across the carpet, her feet making no noise. She crawled onto the bed as she had so many times before, and sat beside the woman. She pulled the once-beautiful hair from her face, and gazed at her. The girl leaned forward, her planting a kiss on the woman’s cheek. She placed the daisy on the pillow beside the woman’s head, and then slowly slid off the bed. She pulled herself up to the windowsill, and stood on the ledge. She looked over her shoulder once more to the woman.8

She closed her eyes. A pair of feathery wings unfurled from her shoulder blades. She raised her arms up high; it was time to return to the garden.9

“I love you, Mama.”10