Seedlings

It hit her as fast as he hit the ground. Sabrina watched the love of her life, Clarence, die in front of her. The couple was, begrudgingly, taking their Sunday evening walk and feeling particularly lazy, however, they believed they owed it to their health to take a stroll. The sky was painted with a beautiful golden yellow and various pinks with a light breeze that whispered melodies around them, possessing Sabrina with a sense of presence and appreciation for the walk. She admired how Clarences’ typically dark brown hair glowed a red hue under the sun’s rays and his eyes shined an amber red to match. She loved the way his hair curled around his ears and the way his long dark eyelashes softly fluttered with each blink. She was mesmerized by him. He was everything to her, to a fault that she wouldn’t realize until he was gone. Normally, they would walk a couple of blocks up and around the cemetery, but they didn’t make it that far before she noticed his breaths shorten with each exhale. A strange ache in her gut swelled when she felt his sweaty grip on her hand loosen. The seconds danced by ever so slowly as she turned her head to figure him out, but he was already on the ground. Sabrina stared down at him in pure shock, stalled, while time caught back up to her. His eyes clenched in pain and his hands clawed on his shirt. Time rang a bell and she finally snapped back to the present and fell to her hands and knees beside him and immediately pulled out her phone to call for help. The paramedics came as fast as they could, but no amount of time could have saved him. The doctor said it was due to an untreated heart condition. He was only 29 years old. The irony of it was that Sabrina spent years trying to get him to go see a doctor for a checkup to make sure everything was in order, but he didn’t believe it was necessary. He thought it was a waste of time and money, even though one of the perks of his job was some of the best health insurance that the state had to offer.

Clarence worked in a factory. He worked from 7am till 3pm, on a normal day. However, during peak season when overtime was mandatory it was more like 7am till 7pm. He was a hard worker and a fair person. His coworkers would describe him as being a practical, driven and ambitious man. When there was an issue at work, Clarence was the one that everyone came to to fix it. He was all those things but outside of work he was loving and emotional, mostly towards Sabrina. He liked his job mainly because he loved getting off early and having the entirety of his day to do whatever he wanted. It gave him time to tend to the garden, go hiking or simply spend the day with Sabrina. Sabrina worked part time as a bank teller. She didn’t care about the job, or anything that had to do with money or finances, but the hours were 8am till 4pm, which gave her the rest of her day to spend with Clarence. The pair revolved around each other. As if they were both the moon and the earth spinning in an open galaxy. Everything they did was for one another.

The funeral offered nothing, but a gray thunderous sky coupled with Sabrina’s fragmented soul. An orchestra of wind filled with broken moans and muffled sobs encapsulated her. The emotional tornado made of melancholy smothered her like a weighted blanket and she didn’t have it in her to fight it. Many people came to the funeral, friends, colleagues, family, distant relatives. He was greatly loved, and his absence would surely burn a hole in many people’s lives. Sabrina felt lonely, though, even with the company of everyone’s cries. Clarence was her best and only friend, so, without him, the only person she would want to console her, her mind became clouded, and she was left feeling like she was burying him alone. Her imagination only saw the dark gray sky crashing the ceremony and the empty pit meant to house the man she loved, stretched deep into the earth’s core. Death’s bony hand gripped her shoulder for solace, but not even the calmness of Death could have consoled her. In that moment, there was nothing and no one around her but the thought of death, a deep dark hole and the empty vessel that once held Clarence’s soul.

At the end of the service, Sabrina watched her brother, Will, pick a yellow dandelion, that he had had an eye on since before the service even begun, from the graveyard’s open field. He knelt to the green grass and plucked it right from its home and proceeded to walk towards her, stern and poised. Every movement he made had a purpose. Every action had a reason. Once he reached her, he moved her long curly blonde hair from her face and tucked the flower behind her ear, his green eyes like laser beams focused on their target. Will was a good big brother, and he took that role seriously, too seriously at times. “I think Clarence would have liked you to have this flower.” Will said to her, as if that meant anything to her, at the time, other than a reminder that Clarence was no longer by her side.

Clarence and Sabrina used to grow different flowers to show their love for one another. It started one night, 4 years prior. Sabrina was going through a spit of depression when she had a late term miscarriage. She was told that she would never be able to physically have children, and this broke her. Clarence didn’t know what to do but he knew he had to do something. Poor Sabrina was glued to the couch and wrapped up in her blanket, like most nights during those dark times, when he came home one night with a small potted orchid. It appeared so ethereal and dainty, and it gave her the little bit of spark she needed to reignite her fight. She invested much of her time and love into caring for the flower until one day, it died. She was heartbroken. She felt like she had failed again, and Clarence felt like he had failed her as well. “Why would I give her something that could die?” He thought to himself. It may have seemed like a small gesture but he knew what the flower truly meant to her. After that, she fell back into a bleak reality that she didn’t belong to. Feeling responsible for this decline, Clarence spent months studying different types of flowers; how to grow them, plant them and keep them alive. Once he felt like he had figured it out, he surprised her by transforming their sunroom into a makeshift greenhouse and soon after turned their tiny barren backyard into an oasis for their flowers to flourish. He originally did it to make her happy, but it quickly turned into a special way for them to show their love. Birthdays, holidays and anniversaries were gifted with seeds and live flowers. They would care for the plants as they would each other. On days when they would fight, their plants would go limp. Maybe due to neglect, possibly due to a more magical element, such as their energies being intertwined with the plants. Sabrina liked to believe it was the latter. After the two recognized their plants’ abilities to mend their problems, they used them as a guide for their relationship. When Clarence died, so did half of their plants.

After the funeral, life quickly went downhill for Sabrina. The little world she created became a black hole in depression and enough was enough, at least that’s what Will thought. He entered Sabrina’s room to check on her after giving her what he thought was enough time to grieve. After Clarence’s death, Will felt it right to live with his sister until she felt okay again. He took care of her, made her food, cleaned the house and took care of the bills she was neglecting. Will took a seat at the end of her bed and took in the state of her living quarters. Black rotten banana peels stinking up her overfilled trash bin, half eaten granola bars littered throughout. Plates of uneaten food he had made her sat on her desk, collecting flies; topped with a mountain of dirty clothes and a sprinkle of empty water bottles. It was brave of him to enter with a straight face. Sabrina side eyed her brother as he nonchalantly gazed around her room without making a face of judgement or appall. She imagined anyone else would scrunch their nose from the stench and gasp from the disarray. Sabrina switched her view back to the TV, staring blankly when he moved closer and rubbed her arm. “Sabrina, I’m going to have to give you some tough love now.” His voice annoyingly dropped a couple octaves to signify the severity that he felt for the situation. Her eyes rolled as she shrugged her arm away from his well-meaning touch. “You have to do something. Please. Get out of bed. We can go out to eat or go see a movie… Anything!” His voice rose slightly and was followed by an ache of silence. She didn’t want to hear it; she didn’t want to talk about it. The life that she knew was over, which meant to her that there was no other life to live, and Will knew that. “You didn’t die, Sabrina, Clarence did. And he would be sickened to see you like this. It’s not healthy”. Anger visibly bubbled up inside of her “I need time to grieve, Will!” She belted, even though she didn’t believe what she said. “No, this is not grief, it’s neglect. You’re two different people, Sabrina.” Streams of tears started to melt down her cheeks and she could feel her face begin to scrunch shut “My flowers are dead!” She screamed out in anguish. Will sat her up and pulled her into a strong embrace. “I know, Sabrina, I know… But listen, I’ve been caring for the rest of your flowers, since your…absence. They’re not doing great but they’re alive… much like you are. I know you’ve been through a lot but you have to keep pushing forward.” Her sobs turned into sniffles, and it finally clicked what he was trying to tell her. She used her sleeves to wipe her tears and snot. “Deep down, I know you’re right… I just don’t know how to live without him.” Will let out a quiet victorious sigh. “We’ll figure it out. In the meantime, why don’t you plant a new flower? Something special for you to take care of in Clarence’s memory.” She gave him a tearful nod and he left her to ponder.

The interaction with her brother inspired her. She thought “It’s been three weeks since his death, and he’s right, I can’t rot away in bed any longer.” She decided in honor of her love, she would be planting something they’ve always talked about.

Moon flowers.

A large, silky, pillowy flower that glows a blinding white. They had been wanting to grow them for quite some time. They’re a bit odd in the way they grow, and bloom and they only do so for one month out of the year and only at night, which seemed fitting for the couple seeing as these flowers often represent love. When Clarence and Sabrina started gardening together, he would get frustrated with her, in a gentle way, when she’d try to plant the seeds dry and straight into the soil. He’d say, “Sabrina, my sweet, you can’t throw the seeds in the soil and expect them to grow. You have to let them sprout first”. She knew he was being cryptic in the way he would say it. He knew that, as people, much like seeds, need to be gently watered and kept warm before they can flourish.

The next day after Will’s talk Sabrina woke up with a purpose. She grabbed Clarence’s dirty shirt that she kept in bed with her, next to her pillow. She covered her face with it and breathed in deeply. She stopped mid-breath when she realized his scent was fading but she couldn’t let that bring her momentum down. She put on a pair of shorts, attempted to brush her matted curls then walked to the nursery in hopes that they would have what she needed. Not a thought in her head other than to get the moonflower seeds, not even a single polite smile to the passersby that looked her way. She arrived at the nursery, frantic and practically jogging to her potential solacement. Tears swelled in her eyes when she saw a single packet of Ipomoea alba seeds sitting peacefully on the rack with the others. Her hand began to shake as she lifted her arm to reach for the packet. To anyone else it’s a small idea, planting a flower, but it meant so much more to Sabrina than that. It meant her acceptance that Clarence is dead. It meant that she was at a fork in the road and must now choose the unfamiliar path. A path that is covered with shrubs making it nearly impossible to see through. She basically threw her money at the cashier and went on her way. More tears steamrolled down her cheeks as she kicked into a sprint to get back home. She could only imagine what people thought of her as she ran by. A young woman clutching a packet of flower seeds to her chest with red cheeks and a sorrow covered, still face with eyes that could only be read as “I’m on a mission”, as if her journey to a new beginning had just begun.

She slowed down to a walking pace when she reached her block. The sunlight bounced off the plastic-coated packet of moonflower seeds as they sat beautifully in Sabrina’s hand. A sparkle glinted; the tickle of a new beginning waved through her. She would get this feeling every time she and Clarence planted something new. The reward of accomplishment and pride from successfully growing something from almost nothing, creating life. Though, the feeling faltered when she subconsciously acknowledged she’ll be doing it alone this time, and every time from here on out. She pulled out Clarence's “bible”, more so, his book of everything flowers. She must soak the seeds for a full day before planting, allowing their hard shells to soften. “Easy. No sweat.” she assured herself, after the emotional exhaustion she had experienced already today. She brought the seeds to the kitchen and filled up a glass from the sink with lukewarm water and placed it on the counter. Her knees bent slightly to bring her eyes level with the glass, and she watched as the seeds plopped into the water and floated about. “Okay, 24 hours. I can do that.” She said aloud to herself. “What can you do?” Will asked from the couch, startling his sister. “The moonflower seeds must soak and soften before being planted.” she said unenthusiastically, eyes still locked on her floating beads of anticipated happiness.

As she stared through the seeds and deep into her mind, she was forced into one of her fondest memories with Clarence.

She loved stories and he loved reading. Occasionally, they would choose a book they were both interested in, and he’d read it to her. Every night, about 10-20 pages, depending on how enthralled they became with the story. On the nights when Sabrina was more tired than usual, she would curl her body into his chest and watch the words roll by on the page until she was gently lulled to sleep, of course, then, Clarence would have to bring her back up to speed on what she missed. However, on the nights when she could keep herself awake, it was like being at a one-man show at a private theatre, for her eyes only. Clarence would have never admitted to this, but he was born to perform. She would sit on her velvet upholstered throne, a decorative throw blanket wrapped around her and popcorn on her lap as he took stage in front of her, filling the space of the TV room. He’d act out each character with different voices and expressions. He would pace the floor to prove the intensity of the story. Clarence was a natural storyteller. Those late nights their home would bloom with his intense and alluring energy. Sabrina remembered, specifically, the first night they started this tradition. They decided to read The Memory Painter by Gwendolyn Womack. His ability to capture each character’s personality threw her at first but, still, she was immediately impressed. The combination of his whimsy and the ambience of the “stage” will always be her favorite memory. The room was dimly lit with their vintage table lamps golden hue, a captured sunset in thin glass bulbs. He moved in slow motion in her reminiscences, an opened book in his right hand while his left gestured wildly in perfect context, his face contorting appropriately with each word that possessed his body. It was like watching a symphony being composed. A birth of creation. It was a part of him that she had not seen before, a part of himself that he never thought he could share with anyone else without embarrassment chasing after him. Clarence truly allowed himself to be free, and it meant everything to Sabrina that he was comfortable enough to open up in that way.

An inadvertent smile crossed her face, beckoning her back into actuality. Just Sabrina, her seeds, and her brother staring at her, perturbed, from across the room.

Her head hung down and hands tightly gripped the edge of the kitchen counter. She gave herself a slight push backwards and stood up right. “I’m going to go get some air.” She said in response to what Will was likely thinking. Her body transposed from the kitchen to the front porch, without a say-so, and plopped down on her old wicker chair. She was lost in the gated labyrinth of her mind without a key.

Sabrina sat on her front porch for hours, seemingly consuming the world around her, when really, she was stuck in her own mind. Each and every repressed thought and memory scurried past her at each turn in this maze that she couldn’t seem to get out of. Rats clawed through weak spots in the hedges, daring their escape. It felt imperative to her that she get out of the maze before the rats do. Before she could devise a plan to break free, the sun began to set, and her busy neighborhood was dwindling down for the night. One excessively long blink and a sigh later and there she was, sequestered to her filthy bedroom, again. Her face softened and elongated as the weight of depression slowly pulled her to the floor. The cold hardwood beneath her stung her bare legs as the excitement from her only current source of serotonin stopped in the name of Time. She used her weak arms to pull herself onto her bed and turned the TV on. The programs started and ended, started and ended and she had no recollection of what happened in each episode as she stared mindlessly at the wall next to her TV. Her eyes began to flutter and shortly after sleep came along and whisked her away, relief blanketed her body, and she was at rest. Until she wasn’t…

The stress of her day and every day before that caused her subconscious to split open at the seam and revealed her worst nightmare. She was standing in a desolate field, alone, sobbing, no one there for her, no one to reach out to. A hole split open in the ground in front of her. Sabrina pulled herself to the edge of the opening and stared down to find her partner’s lifeless body, lying in a deep grave, no ossuary to contain his body. Suddenly, his eyes jolted open, and dirt rained from the sky on top of them, like an earthy storm, collecting in his mouth and nostrils. He thrashed about, choking and gasping for air. The flowing dirt wouldn’t end, and the scene played in a loop for an eternity. Finally, he screamed Sabrina’s name, and she froze, unable to stop the invisible Reapers in the sky from burying him alive. The ground around his grave collapsed on top of him, and soon after rats came to claim his body for their own, taking pieces of flesh with them.

“Sabrina!”

“Help me!”

“Make it stop!” The screams echoed from beneath the dirt until it muffled his voice entirely.

She woke up to her body fighting the Reapers who refused to cease the dirt storm. “Clarence!”, She shouted. All she saw was her empty room, but she felt it in every fiber of her being that he was there with her. She could hear him. She could feel him with a force she’d never felt before. She leapt out of bed, flung her closet door open and catapulted her clothes from their hangers just in case he was hiding behind them. Wails and grunts escaped her mouth as she played the most intense game of hide and seek. Her cries bled from her bedroom and seeped into the rest of the house. Soon after she began destroying her bedroom, Will nearly knocked the door off its hinges to aid in her fight with her own imagination. The sight of her tearing her room apart put him into a panic. “Sabrina! What’s going on? What are you doing?” he said in a shaky voice, failing to hide his fear.

Manically, she responded “He’s here, Will! I have to find him!”. Dirty dishes were shattered on the hardwood floor by the clothing that had lost their battle with her.

“Who’s here, Sabrina?” Will questioned this time with a controlled and calm tone of voice, although, still unable to hide his panicked eyes.

“Clarence is! Didn’t you hear him?” Sabrina’s brows furrowed in frustration. “Why aren’t you helping me look? Can’t you feel Clarence is with us right now? Don’t you want him back?” At this point her teeth were grinding from frustration and Will thought her eyebrows would be forever glued together.

After looking around, William let out a heavy sigh and took a seat on the edge of her bed. He placed his hand on her sweaty pillow and closed his eyes. “Sabrina, I think you had a nightmare.”

Steam was radiating off her body and she felt the words she was forming coming from the back of her throat then being released with a high-pitched squeal “It wasn’t a dream!”

She felt as if the weight of 100 losses smothered her as her lungs refused to take a deep breath in. Sabrina’s face was a cherry red and the veins in her neck pounded to a fast tempo beat. Sharp, shallow breaths hurtled into her. Her body had officially peaked in her panic, and she no longer knew how to breathe. Will promptly stood up to calm her but before he could reach her, she heard a soft voice whisper sweetly in her left ear “Sabrina…”.

Air slowly inflated her lungs. “There he is! He’s alive, I swear! We buried him alive! I have to save him!” Her brother’s body tensed, readying him for round 2 of her growing case of delusion. She made eye contact with him and tried to decipher who was going to hit first. They had a stare down for a few long seconds before she finally made the first move. She used all her strength to shove him away from her and darted for the front door. He grabbed hold of her arms, and she immediately thrashed her body around to loosen his grip. She managed to break loose by dropping her body to a dead weight and crawling between his legs. She was abruptly hit with a bolt of adrenaline and leaped down the stairs and through the threshold of the house. She moved as if a gun had been shot and she was leading the race. Her body seemed weightless as she ran through her neighborhood. Her vision was so clouded by her mission that she didn’t see the two women on the sidewalk in front of her and rammed into them, knocking herself onto the hard concrete.

The two slim women in athletic wear hovered over her. One woman looked at the other in annoyance and the other in confusion. “Are you okay, miss?” they asked in unison.

“No! I need to get to the cemetery and dig up my boyfriend! He’s been buried alive, and no one will help me!” Tears thundered down her cheeks as she explained herself. She looked past the women and saw Will down the street, running in their direction. The two strangers looked at each other and back to Sabrina with the same eyes that her brother gave her moments ago. The older of the two women made note of Will hurtling towards them and slowly reached her hand out to pull me off the ground. Sabrina thought they wouldn’t understand and would likely hand her off to her brother once he reached them, so she pushed her offer away, sprung off the ground and continued running. The cemetery was so close, she could see it.

She frantically ran through the aisles. Apologizing to all the deceased’s loved ones as she made her way through. Finally, she saw Clarence’s head stone.

“A Gentle Soul” the stone read.

She fell to her knees at the edge of the still fresh grave and began to claw at the earth with her bare hands.

“Sabrina” A voice called.

“Yes, Clarence! I’m coming for you!” She cried out as her hands became muddied.

“Sabrina!” The voice got louder and continued, “Stop!”

“What?” A moment of clarity came through Sabrina as she realized what she was doing, and she was shoved into a reality that she almost forgot about. Her heart ached as she felt a familiar arm wrap around her. “Clarence?” A volcano of tears and mucus erupted from her. She knew it wasn’t him.

She heard pieces of William’s heart break as he responded, “No, baby sister, it’s me.”

Her mind continued to play tricks on her as she shifted from the chimera she had created. “I heard him. I swear, I think… I mean, I thought he was alive...” She said as the trunk of her body lowered to the ground in defeat.

“I know you did, but he’s not. We’ll get you through this, okay?” She nodded her head in agreement even though the sense that he was still alive lingered.

Sabrina was still confused and mildly embarrassed as they walked through town. She was covered in dirt, hair matted, her eyes heavily swollen and red from crying for 3 weeks straight and still wearing her pajamas from the night before. She felt as if every neighbor came outside to see the commotion. Every parked car stopped to witness her outburst. She passed the two women she ran into earlier, and they stared at her and whispered to one another. However, none of her neighbors truly felt the way that Sabrina thought they felt about her, more so, they were simply concerned. As they made their way towards the front door, Sabrina’s urge to check on her seeds overcame her.

She shuffled into the kitchen and plucked one willing participant from the glass of water and gave it a little squeeze between her thumb and index finger. They were soft and ready to be planted, just as the book said. Sabrina very solemnly and lethargically grabbed the glass. Her body moved slowly and as if on autopilot, with no sign of emotion behind her tired eyes. Her brain seemed to have simply turned off, allowing her to process the emotions that had been terrorizing her without the pain of it all. Before she made it back to the front door to leave, again, she spotted a book she didn’t recognize on her shelf, calling out to her. She stopped to investigate it. Sabrina opened the cover and recognized the scribbled handwriting on the first page.

“To Sabrina

With all my love and soul,

Clarence”

She closed her eyes and smiled when she remembered that day before Clarence passed away, he mentioned buying her a new book to read. They had planned on starting it that night when they returned from their walk. She tucked the book under her arm and went on her way. Will stopped her at the door with a pained look of regret. “I’m okay, Will. Honestly. I’ll be back.” She began walking back to the cemetery. She didn’t have to look back to know that her brother was following her. She was annoyed but understood why he felt the need to do so. As she walked up to Clarence's grave, her face turned red at the sight of it. Deep holes and claw marks. She cleaned up his area then plucked each seed out of the water and placed them half an inch deep into the already loosened dirt. She dumped the water from the glass on the seeds and sat down in front of his headstone as if waiting for the flowers to grow and bloom within minutes of being planted. She felt the urge to lie on her lover’s grave, but instead pulled the book from under her arm and began to read it out loud for Clarence and his sedentary neighbors to hear. Will quietly approached without a word, sat down next to her and listened. The two sat there until the red, yellow and orange hues danced across the sky. Will stood up, picked his little sister off the ground and they started their journey home, arm in arm.

Every week for 23 weeks Sabrina visited Clarence and the moonflowers, waiting for them to blossom. As soon as the sun invited the moon into the sky, she would arrive at the grave with a water pitcher for the plants, and a book to read. Every week until the 23rd week. She arrived at the same time as usual, this time with excitement as she knew that tonight was the night. She sat patiently staring, waiting for them to unfurl and make their grand entrance. All 6 of the blossoms started to shake and dance in almost unison, slowly unraveling themselves to say hello to the world and introduce themselves to her beloved, Clarence. As Sabrina watched the moonflowers open, she thought about how much she had grown in the last 5 months. She learned to appreciate the time she had with Clarence rather than regret the time that they lost. A couple tears snuck down her face.

“I hope you love our new flowers.”