Bloom

He would roll in the long grass, afternoon to evening, despite it badly irritating his skin. The pink lumps swelled like a myriad of clouds, lit and shadowed by the setting sun.

The sky was forever changing and he liked this.

His mom blew gently on the raised lumps, softly dabbing on calamine lotion. Cooling the itchy heat, she soothed the troubled patches; he watched her and always noted the care she took.

Can we have pancakes for dinner, mom?

For a time, he became a secret agent. He wore his monster mask and hid in the bushes by the school gate, jumping out when his friends arrived.

He would wear it to class and refuse to take it off. The principal told him three times this was not in accordance with school policy.

He told the principal how he’d heard school was for drones and he was not a drone. The principal wrote in a letter he was not welcome at school anymore.

He rolled in the grass and watched the sky turn strange colours.

His mother was a florist but quit her job to look after him. He said he didn’t need her help, she said everybody needs help.

She said they could help each other if they looked at their new circumstances like flowers do – they would bloom again.

He liked the sound of that; she always made things easier for him to understand.

The money ran out very quickly. His mother sold the television and the dining table that had been in the family for three generations.

She would cry sometimes and he would do his best to keep the house clean because he knew she liked that.

He got a job dropping pamphlets in letterboxes. Sometimes on Fridays they would have fish and chips.

He would roll in the grass and talk to the insects he found. He had heard you could eat some insects if you were hungry enough but he never did.

After a few weeks, he didn’t miss his friends. The grass grew longer and the itching became worse.

She would calm the wounds and made him feel better by doing funny voices.

His mother picked flowers from gardens around the neighbourhood and created exquisite bouquets.

She sold them from the garage and they began to eat proper meals again.

He would act as a ringmaster dressed in his monster mask. He would perform poems about the flowers and dance with bunches of jonquils and daisies.

Together they sold many bouquets and the mother had enough money to grow her own plants in the backyard.

The boy would dance in the blossoming garden, humming tunes and thinking of new poems. His mother would nurse his swelling skin and they ate pancakes.

The local newspaper wrote a story on their flower business. The photo accompanying the article was of the mother and the boy wearing monster masks. People came from far and wide to buy their bouquets.

The backyard was awash with flowers. The boy sorely missed his grass and would practise his dancing with the roses.

His arms became torn and bloodied; his mother picked out the thorns and gently applied antiseptic lotion.

It soothed his skin and it smelled good but the cuts would not heal. They turned yellow and the mother sought the advice of a doctor.

His monster mask sat by his hospital bed and he imagined rolling in the grass and looking at the turning sky.

His mother dug up a patch of the garden and sprinkled grass seeds over the soil.

She scattered the boy’s ashes on top of the seeds as the clouds turned pink and grey, lit and shadowed by the setting sun.