family
Remember the Marigold
“Do you want to talk about it?" The boy broke the soul-searching eye contact he had been maintaining with the grass. He glanced to the side towards the voice, eyes reddened and nose wet. He could see the age in the face of the man. In every wrinkle there seemed some hidden glint of wisdom. That’s why he’d come to him, but his tongue felt heavy, as if coated in steel.
By Blake Arnold3 years ago in Fiction
Learning To Love Marigolds
I always hated marigolds. They were a perennial favorite of my mother’s, and she planted them in the flower beds of our little home every year, without fail. It was a small rectangular bed, carved out of the yard, next to the worn gravel driveway, and edged with railroad ties. Yellow and orange, and sometimes trimmed with red. I think they made her happy, the bright colors. A beacon of hope in an otherwise humdrum existence. But as for me, I hated them. I wanted the pretty reds, and purples, and pinks of other flowers like lilies, irises, or even begonias. Or sweet smelling roses. Basically, anything that my grandmother, my father’s mother, grew. Yellow and orange were, after all, basic and ugly colors. And marigolds smelled bad.
By C. H. Crow3 years ago in Fiction
Marigolds on the Cathedral Step
Sanity is fluid. We all want to believe that our minds will stay forever intact. Severe mental illness is something we hear about on the news, something that happens to other people, not to us. All too often, we don't realize how fragile our grasp on reality can be. Sometimes, mental illness can be brought on by a combination of genetic and environmental factors, such as abuse. Sometimes, all it takes is one major, terrible event to send us over the edge.
By Angela Cooke3 years ago in Fiction
Marissa's Gold
“Hija, hold these,” Marissa’s mother said through withheld tears. She handed the girl an armful of marigolds. They would be used to decorate the grave of her father. Since he died in the hospital last week, it had been nothing but sequences of hysterical cries and silent sobs. Marissa didn’t think she had any tears left to give.
By Kiersten Kelly3 years ago in Fiction
The Botanist's Son
“And this one, my boy, I call a chalice, brimming with sunlight.” My earliest years are to me a flux of images. The first chapters in the story are not really linear, and this makes it quite difficult for me to keep track. I haven’t made sense of it all just yet. There are, however, a few facts that remain my frame to cling on, defiant columns rising from the sea. Firstly, I know my father was a scientist. More specifically, a botanist. The man loved flowers, and he could tell you a lot about them. Often too much. I’ve been told that he possessed the conversational quality of a single C-sharp note, sustained on an organ; at first one was curious to hear it, then one became bored, then one would be forced to take leave before their lack of tolerance became too obvious and, more than anything, impolite. His lectures were notorious for being at once zesty and unbearable. But, as a boy, I was rapt with them. Something I’d inherited from my mother.
By H. R. M. Laventure3 years ago in Fiction
Pink Jewelry Box
The ride home from the hospital was never easy. Every Saturday they would pile in the car and drive the half hour at the off chance they might get to see their grandma one more time. Roro had become too ill for the kids to get to see her, but their mom was allowed to go in. It was nearing more than a month since they began this new Saturday morning routine, and all Anna, Clark and Lori were able to do was sulk around the waiting room and bother their mom for vending machine money for what seemed to be the only edible food source in the entire hospital.
By Brooklyn Moll3 years ago in Fiction