Flower Within a Glass Case

A small town looks like a shining community which never loses its luster. For generations it keeps the same quality year-in and year-out. Every year you visited as a child the town seemed unchanged, perfectly preserved like a flower within a glass case. You never notice any new faces; even the visitors that book into the caravan park alongside your family when you were young are consistent. You each believe you have struck gold in discovering the idyllic holiday town with a grass always the same shade of bright green and the lake always full and rippling with the blue of a perfect day.

You see yourself as another butterfly drawn to a flower always in bloom, delicate soft petals immune to wilting, its stem unwavering, fragrance as invigorating as it was when it first blossomed. This town could be your forever-home, you think. You return when you are older, enraptured by the image of the community looking as rustic and warm as it always had through your child eyes. The grass is thick and luscious by the water lapping at the bank of the lake bordered by tennis courts which are always filled by the locals on the weekends. You smile. It is such a surreal feeling. You have finally found the place you belong, presented like a valuable gift wrapped in nostalgia.

Down the street the locals each give the same welcoming smile with their chin pushed out and eyes crinkled. You feel loved! Every resident here engages with you in conversation, holding their smile in place, nodding and laughing as you speak, waving over their shoulder as you both continue about your day. The experience is unreal to you, like looking through rose-coloured glasses at a fairytale you have been dropped into.

As you turn to go about your day, you don’t see that neighbor drop their smile as quickly as they put it up. You miss the moment that they remove their mask. You don’t hear the soft groan of annoyance under their breath as they walk away. For two years you live your life in your fairytale, relishing the soft rosey glow of everything you look at, feeling the many smiles of your community warming your heart, basking in the hint of floral aroma of the pristine flower you have gravitated towards.

One day, inevitably, your rose-glasses break. You are left looking dejectedly at a world devoid of colour, lacking tenderness with a threatening undertone snaking its way into every word and gesture. Your precious flower you were drawn to is kept within the glass case protecting it and you are left fluttering on the outside of the glass with nowhere to land. Your poor, thin wings have been beating so hard for two years so eager to reach the silky petals, so mesmerized by the colour and beauty that you did not let yourself feel your exhaustion. Now, you feel it. You feel it heavy in your limbs weighing you down with fresh disappointment like a bitter pill to swallow and the sting of rejection like the sting of a slap across your face. Your resolve wavers and your happiness feels shallow now, just like the town you are in.

You realize every smile looks the same, every laugh is toneless and short, every wave is careless, every glance your way was never actually meant for you. You begin to hear the genuine interest in their tone and see the compassion, concern and warmth in their expressions as they speak to each other . . . things that you never see what they speak to you. Instead, every person wears the same opaque glass mask with a wide painted smile and blushing cheeks. When you go shopping, when you go to the bank, when you go for a walk around the lake, each person maintains the community-driven façade. The mask is bone-white, perfectly oval in shape, thin red lips pulled up into a sly grin, faint pink brushed over the cheeks, and deep black voids where eyes should be. In a crowd, all you can see now are the identical masks tilted in your direction, lips pulled too far wide in a smile you see as menacing, the two dark holes staring into your soul. They are like a pack of silent watchers, biding their time until one day the mask transforms to reveal their rows of pointed teeth they would be prepared to eat you alive with should you step in the wrong direction.

You, an unfortunate soul who was deceived by the quaintness of the small town, had your wings take you to a Venus Flytrap disguised as a beautiful rose. This plant only looks perfect as it has been carefully crafted and maintained by its residents. The unwavering glass masks now obscure the beauty of the flower that was once within your sights.

After five years of volunteering for the community football club, you eventually make some acquaintances that humor you with small-talk but never invite you to a gathering outside of the football game. That is, until a newcomer moves into the town. You see the newcomer’s excitement and awe as he strikes up enthusiastic conversation with everyone he passes. You can’t help but see yourself as you were seven years ago in him now. You wonder if he, too, used to holiday here and if he, too, will find this place to be filled with vacant words and mechanical gestures.

Your neighbor suddenly begins to speak to you as if you are old friends; they ask if you need help with your garden and how your parents in the city are doing. They make direct eye contact with you and for the first time since the fairytale shattered, the usual black holes that would stare at you are replaced with your neighbor’s crinkled blue eyes as he laughed in a way you had never heard before. He claps you on the shoulder and says not to be a stranger when he leaves you, and you are stunned. Looking across the street at a couple going for a walk you see the unsettling masks have suddenly vanished. You almost can’t believe that the moment has finally come that you have earned your place in the community. It’s alluring shine returns brighter than you have ever seen it before! The fragrance of that perfect flower your wings had taken you to hits you in its full and sweet force as the glass case is lifted for you to enter and bask in the aroma of the flower. It is intoxicating.

Weeks pass and you have quickly developed a strong social life. You are friends with your neighbor, your neighbors’ friends and their friends and so on until you are a part of the town network, one butterfly among many fluttering about in paradise.

On the other side of the glass case where the butterflies enjoy their blossoming flower is a grey moth threatening to spread the powder from its wings over their perfect petals and mar the beauty they orbit. You notice the threat to your paradise. The newcomer strikes up conversation with you and, as if by instinct, you don a pale mask with a carefully crafted smile. You are polite. You are informative. You nod and make a hollow sound falling short of a laugh. You wave over your shoulder and move along. As the moth goes about its day you let out a quiet groan in your irritation. That moth could ruin everything you had worked so hard for. The priceless flower is well guarded by small-town charm performed at arm’s length, leaving just enough space to fit the glass layer between you and the moth.