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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Survival / Success
- Subject: Community / Home
- Published: 07/12/2014
One Summer Afternoon
Born 1994, F, from Bangalore, India.jpg)
Summer afternoon. The two syllables I loved most. It was the day of my blossom and soon I would be as sparkling and scintillating as the other florets. The beginning of my life. I was in a frenzy and the thought of my life ahead was thrilling. Many of my fellow florets had already bloomed into lustrous pink, white, cyan and orange. Orange, like the color of the sunset and the breaking of dawn. I wanted to be just that; but anything else I welcomed too. I scrutinized the light blue sky, with just the right amount of tint from the yellow rays of the mid afternoon sun. Yes, it was time. As I took in the warmth, I closed my eyes, let open my petals gently acquiescing the rays to fill me completely. A hue of pink was what I transformed into from a mere bud. The metamorphosis had changed me into a pink blush. This I felt was more alluring than the bright orange I had hoped for. It was sober and pleasing to the onlookers.
My life’s journey had commenced and the pretty sight of my fellow florets made me glare at them awestruck. They were as beautiful as ever and I had now merged with them. The sauntering breeze was like the sound of a melody and we danced to its tune, fixed at our roots but active from the shoots. I was a beautiful creation in the colossal garden that contained a plethora of flora, unfolding their radiance. My concealed mirth had been brought out into the open. Little did I notice the anguish on my friends’ face nor did I know that this unbounded happiness of mine, was soon to be vanquished.
As the summer afternoon was gradually substituted by a cool evening, I continued radiating my cheerfulness when a young boy came in from the back of the house into the garden, to appraise our growth. It was when the flowers glimmered their best to impress those walking mortals. My enthusiasm of having metamorphosed that summer afternoon brought about my glimmer to its very best. The young boy carefully scrutinized the florets one after the other, either criticizing or praising them, when on the spur of a moment, I felt pain. I had lost control of myself and swayed back and forth as if by force. My source of nutrition was starting to become scarce. My roots felt unprotected. The agony was unbearable. I writhed in pain from being jerked away from my nutrition and water. I tried to perceive my surroundings, but in vain. Yes, the agony was inexplicable. My eyes had shut tight, not wanting to view the misery I was being subjected to. Finally, the force ceased and I stopped swaying. My eyes clicked open and the sight in front of me brought in a sense of fear. It was the young boy’s face. As I looked at him, I felt myself being whisked away from my fellow florets. My screams went unheard by the lad, when at last, I saw the burning agony of my friends and the reason I could now fathom. I felt myself compressed in the massive palms of the young boy and it was at this instant my surroundings changed. Water washed at my feet but I still felt unprotected and prone to the dangers of the world. I was inside a transparent hard cage, which the walking mortals called ‘glass’. Oxygen was scarce and sunlight almost nil. I felt myself drifting towards the state of unconsciousness, a state of temporary sleep. I tried to resist the urge to drop off, when the glass cage I was in lifted off and was taken to a place that resembled the exact opposite of paradise. The irrevocable fear I felt, confirmed that I was in hell.
The walking mortals were now talking. ‘Humans’ I had heard my friends say. It was a continuous chatter and my tender ears felt uneasy and perturbed. There were over hundreds of them and I could not understand what their chatter meant. Had I been taken out and tormented to be executed in front of these humans? That was exactly what I sensed. All of a sudden, there was a hush. The ‘humans’ watched me with intent, cruel eyes. It was not just at me, but other florets as well. They had been caged in a glass box too and their misery did not go unnoticed by me. The realization hit me late. We were being made into a public show. Some of the ‘humans’ even laughed at us. It was more of a public mockery show. We were being treated as an object of farce. The feeling caused the pain in me to increase by two folds. I tried to shut them all out, those evil minded creatures that god had built with so much thought. They were like our devil reminding us that the days of the beautiful florets were now numbered. I was mocked for a long period of time. It seemed to go on endlessly. I had almost given up hope, when the hush was back again and a winner for the most beautiful floret was chosen. It was a pretty little red colored floweret and its blush was ten times deeper than mine. The glass cage it was in was carried away by a ‘human’ to an unknown place and I couldn’t but sympathize for the life that lay ahead of it. As for the rest of us, the little water that washed at my feet was thrown and I was launched into the air and out the room that housed the devils. I was felt to the dead.
I landed hard on the concrete pavement, the tears oozing out of my petals and stalk going unnoticed to the ‘humans’. An innocent little girl took pity on my condition and the little amount of color left in me, and thus carried me away. I tried to tell her to put me back in the soil, where I can grow and rejuvenate my robustness. But it was obvious she could not hear me. It was discouraging to have such a hope, a ‘hungry hope’ I called it. I landed in between the pages of a book she used to read once and the heavy covers fell on me, trying its best to drain the remaining life out of me. I felt one of my petal dislodge from me and get isolated. I lay there, for how long I do not recall, feeling the heaviness get deeper and deeper every passing day. The water source was down to a zero. The oxygen I used by consuming ‘myself’. My green feet felt squashed and the sap oozed out. Now, I had nothing left to survive. I felt famished. My thoughts churned in my mind and those thoughts were only about my survival and my fellow florets back home. The earnestness and joy I had felt on that ‘summer afternoon’ when I had bloomed into a ravishing pink floweret, was begone. I awaited the next stage of my life and indubitably knew, that those stages will not have happiness in it. The little girl showed up again and removed the heaviness that rested upon me. It was perhaps a motive to make me feel free. But of course, that could now never be plausible. Her face showed the disgust of staring at a withered, dried up floret, which had an almost negligible amount of life in it. The pink blush was nothing but a wrinkled dull gray and the lush green stalk was an extinguished trampled mass. Unable to see my grotesque body, she carried me away to a neighboring window and I felt myself being blown away by the air from her mouth.
The chill of the night breeze enveloped me and I smiled at the irony when the air tried to push oxygen inside me, and it refused to enter. It was the one, last, futile try. My then stout body was now light and I flew through the night air, sequestering the remaining petals, leaves and the mass of stalk. ‘Humans’ had always thought that flowerets were happy things. Little did they hear my screams of suffering and the pain inflicted by them, to which I succumbed to entirely.
I landed on a cold, soft bed of grass, the elements of nature and mother earth bidding me a last farewell from the relentless worldly chasm. My journey, coming to a beautiful end, as it had beautifully started one summer afternoon. As my eyes closed, the last thing I filled my sight with was a glistening tapestry of stars, welcoming me to an utterly different Utopia.
One Summer Afternoon(Anagha S Setlur)
Summer afternoon. The two syllables I loved most. It was the day of my blossom and soon I would be as sparkling and scintillating as the other florets. The beginning of my life. I was in a frenzy and the thought of my life ahead was thrilling. Many of my fellow florets had already bloomed into lustrous pink, white, cyan and orange. Orange, like the color of the sunset and the breaking of dawn. I wanted to be just that; but anything else I welcomed too. I scrutinized the light blue sky, with just the right amount of tint from the yellow rays of the mid afternoon sun. Yes, it was time. As I took in the warmth, I closed my eyes, let open my petals gently acquiescing the rays to fill me completely. A hue of pink was what I transformed into from a mere bud. The metamorphosis had changed me into a pink blush. This I felt was more alluring than the bright orange I had hoped for. It was sober and pleasing to the onlookers.
My life’s journey had commenced and the pretty sight of my fellow florets made me glare at them awestruck. They were as beautiful as ever and I had now merged with them. The sauntering breeze was like the sound of a melody and we danced to its tune, fixed at our roots but active from the shoots. I was a beautiful creation in the colossal garden that contained a plethora of flora, unfolding their radiance. My concealed mirth had been brought out into the open. Little did I notice the anguish on my friends’ face nor did I know that this unbounded happiness of mine, was soon to be vanquished.
As the summer afternoon was gradually substituted by a cool evening, I continued radiating my cheerfulness when a young boy came in from the back of the house into the garden, to appraise our growth. It was when the flowers glimmered their best to impress those walking mortals. My enthusiasm of having metamorphosed that summer afternoon brought about my glimmer to its very best. The young boy carefully scrutinized the florets one after the other, either criticizing or praising them, when on the spur of a moment, I felt pain. I had lost control of myself and swayed back and forth as if by force. My source of nutrition was starting to become scarce. My roots felt unprotected. The agony was unbearable. I writhed in pain from being jerked away from my nutrition and water. I tried to perceive my surroundings, but in vain. Yes, the agony was inexplicable. My eyes had shut tight, not wanting to view the misery I was being subjected to. Finally, the force ceased and I stopped swaying. My eyes clicked open and the sight in front of me brought in a sense of fear. It was the young boy’s face. As I looked at him, I felt myself being whisked away from my fellow florets. My screams went unheard by the lad, when at last, I saw the burning agony of my friends and the reason I could now fathom. I felt myself compressed in the massive palms of the young boy and it was at this instant my surroundings changed. Water washed at my feet but I still felt unprotected and prone to the dangers of the world. I was inside a transparent hard cage, which the walking mortals called ‘glass’. Oxygen was scarce and sunlight almost nil. I felt myself drifting towards the state of unconsciousness, a state of temporary sleep. I tried to resist the urge to drop off, when the glass cage I was in lifted off and was taken to a place that resembled the exact opposite of paradise. The irrevocable fear I felt, confirmed that I was in hell.
The walking mortals were now talking. ‘Humans’ I had heard my friends say. It was a continuous chatter and my tender ears felt uneasy and perturbed. There were over hundreds of them and I could not understand what their chatter meant. Had I been taken out and tormented to be executed in front of these humans? That was exactly what I sensed. All of a sudden, there was a hush. The ‘humans’ watched me with intent, cruel eyes. It was not just at me, but other florets as well. They had been caged in a glass box too and their misery did not go unnoticed by me. The realization hit me late. We were being made into a public show. Some of the ‘humans’ even laughed at us. It was more of a public mockery show. We were being treated as an object of farce. The feeling caused the pain in me to increase by two folds. I tried to shut them all out, those evil minded creatures that god had built with so much thought. They were like our devil reminding us that the days of the beautiful florets were now numbered. I was mocked for a long period of time. It seemed to go on endlessly. I had almost given up hope, when the hush was back again and a winner for the most beautiful floret was chosen. It was a pretty little red colored floweret and its blush was ten times deeper than mine. The glass cage it was in was carried away by a ‘human’ to an unknown place and I couldn’t but sympathize for the life that lay ahead of it. As for the rest of us, the little water that washed at my feet was thrown and I was launched into the air and out the room that housed the devils. I was felt to the dead.
I landed hard on the concrete pavement, the tears oozing out of my petals and stalk going unnoticed to the ‘humans’. An innocent little girl took pity on my condition and the little amount of color left in me, and thus carried me away. I tried to tell her to put me back in the soil, where I can grow and rejuvenate my robustness. But it was obvious she could not hear me. It was discouraging to have such a hope, a ‘hungry hope’ I called it. I landed in between the pages of a book she used to read once and the heavy covers fell on me, trying its best to drain the remaining life out of me. I felt one of my petal dislodge from me and get isolated. I lay there, for how long I do not recall, feeling the heaviness get deeper and deeper every passing day. The water source was down to a zero. The oxygen I used by consuming ‘myself’. My green feet felt squashed and the sap oozed out. Now, I had nothing left to survive. I felt famished. My thoughts churned in my mind and those thoughts were only about my survival and my fellow florets back home. The earnestness and joy I had felt on that ‘summer afternoon’ when I had bloomed into a ravishing pink floweret, was begone. I awaited the next stage of my life and indubitably knew, that those stages will not have happiness in it. The little girl showed up again and removed the heaviness that rested upon me. It was perhaps a motive to make me feel free. But of course, that could now never be plausible. Her face showed the disgust of staring at a withered, dried up floret, which had an almost negligible amount of life in it. The pink blush was nothing but a wrinkled dull gray and the lush green stalk was an extinguished trampled mass. Unable to see my grotesque body, she carried me away to a neighboring window and I felt myself being blown away by the air from her mouth.
The chill of the night breeze enveloped me and I smiled at the irony when the air tried to push oxygen inside me, and it refused to enter. It was the one, last, futile try. My then stout body was now light and I flew through the night air, sequestering the remaining petals, leaves and the mass of stalk. ‘Humans’ had always thought that flowerets were happy things. Little did they hear my screams of suffering and the pain inflicted by them, to which I succumbed to entirely.
I landed on a cold, soft bed of grass, the elements of nature and mother earth bidding me a last farewell from the relentless worldly chasm. My journey, coming to a beautiful end, as it had beautifully started one summer afternoon. As my eyes closed, the last thing I filled my sight with was a glistening tapestry of stars, welcoming me to an utterly different Utopia.
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