garden girls short story

Emerald green hedge walls towered overhead. They enclosed the wide open space occupied by two large, round and fancifully decorated tables that sat on either side of the opening archway over the only exit. The archway was a wire skeleton woven with vines from which purple wisteria flowers dangling just above where one would walk through. I was sitting directly across the entryway with my back to the far hedge wall. The tables - one to my left, one to my right - were filled with dishes and silverware as well as tiered dessert stands in the center of each, overflowing with colorful baked goods. I could see pansies adorning some of the cookies, daisies decorating the lemon squares and rose petals strewn about in between all the neat little place settings. A bowl of salad sat on either side of each dessert stand, filled with fruits and nuts, and sat next to a bowl of poppyseed dressing.

The presence of prepared food sent my heart racing because I knew that meant someone - by the looks of it, a lot of people - would be coming soon. I had no idea where I was or how I'd gotten there.

As if on cue, I could hear the sound of distant voices approaching. The voices were higher pitched, and laughs rang out intermittently like bells chiming. A bit of my anxiety subsided as I realized they were probably girls, like me; however, that anxiety spiked again when they appeared in the doorway.

I hadn't even heard them get so close. It's as though one minute they were far away; and the next, they were gathered under the archway.

Their attire immediately struck me as odd. Each girl was in a costume resembling a flower, some more elaborate than others. The blonde in front wore a white, wide-brimmed hat with a pale yellow crown at the center to resemble a daffodil, the rest of her clothes a plain, botanical green. Next to her was a dark-skinned girl with a peach orange afro; and inconspicuously placed throughout were the little cone flowers you'd find on a hyacinth. Again, the rest of her was dressed monochrome in green.

One shorter girl to the far right wore a pale pink top fashioned like blooming petals that stopped just below her neckline to stay off her shoulders, above them her faded pink hair flared at the end so it barely brushed her skin. Behind her, a few inches taller, stood a girl whose top was perfectly replicating iris flower petals. Like the girl in pink, the blooming petals stayed off her shoulders; while another layer of petals below them unfurled like a sort of peplum blouse.

Some of them ventured to the uncanny valley, narrowly walking the line between human and flower as their features morphed together: one with a rose headdress, and a handful with masks (or maybe prosthetics?) of pansy petals radiating around their faces.

Bearing warm smiles, they cautiously approached me as a group, the way one would approach a wounded animal.

“Hi,” she said sweetly, drawing out the diphthong vowel a bit too long, “Are you lost?”

It was as though she was speaking to a child. Honestly, I couldn’t even be insulted because I felt like a lost child in that moment. The place was so unfamiliar and I had no idea what I was doing there. After a moment, I slowly nodded to answer her question.

Her face shifted to a still smiling but more pitiful expression, “You poor thing. How did a pretty girl like you get lost?” Her inflection conveyed such genuine shock and confusion, it took me a moment to process what she had actually said. It wasn’t a real question which I was meant to answer, but instead an insinuation of a compliment. Since it hadn’t been said outright, I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I continued remaining silent. Behind her, I could see some of the other girls reacting to the situation. A few just waited and watched intently to see what would happen, but others I could see wearing sneers and rolling their eyes, covering their mouths to better whisper secrets into each other’s ears.

She seemed unaware of her ensemble’s disdain, or perhaps she just didn’t care, because as she finished speaking, she reached up to stroke my hair hanging down around me before pushing it behind my shoulders. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You can stay with us as long as you need.”

I was reluctant to ask any questions, although I had many. The girls did not feel the same way, and each would compete nonchalamment to have their question heard and answered. Some of the girls looked at me with genuine curiosity, others glanced over occasionally as they struggled to tolerate my presence, and some looked at me with an emotion that I can only compare to hunger. With every answer I provided, their eyes looked unsatisfied, as though I hadn’t provided the answer they were looking for.

We had migrated from the ground to one of the tables, while a few strayed to the other as seats overflowed. The daffodil - Narcissus - passed me something that looked like a cigarette. The whole thing was wrapped in dried rose petals, one end holding a dull, burning cherry. Without question, I accepted and put it to my lips, knowing exactly what to do; although, I had never seen something like this before.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath as the smoke began to fill my mouth and mind.

I opened my eyes to see shocked faces. When they saw my confusion, Narcissus stepped in to say, “Um, I’m not sure if this sort of thing is, like, typical for you, but your hair is, like...green now?” 

I looked down at the pieces falling in my face, and she was right. I couldn’t remember a time when this had happened before, but the lack of panic I felt dissuaded me from thinking too hard about it. I shrugged and that seemed to be enough for them to act as though nothing happened. Perhaps they were happy to ignore anything that might make me stand out. They were happy to divert the conversation back to someone else's business.

The morning continued, although I’d lost track of how long it had been morning. It seems as though it should’ve changed by now. The questions also continued. Another one of the girls stood up and leaned over to shout her own. Her face was painted a pale purple color that blended seamlessly into the petals surrounding it. It could have been a mask, since it looked like she had short, dark colored hair back behind the petals; but it would’ve been one hell of a mask, because the way it moved as she spoke was straight out of the uncanny valley. 

“So, you s-still haven’t told us where you c-came from? D-did you come from another garden?” she could just barely raise her voice to be louder than the chorus of people. Some quieted down as they heard her start talking, while others carried on obliviously. She fiddled with her hands as she spoke, holding them just above her diaphragm. I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could, another flower - Iris -threw back her head and laughed,

“No way she came from a garden!” She ended the sentence with another cackling laugh. "She doesn't even look like a flower. I'd bet she's a wildflower at best," she continued. "At worst, a weed"

The last part she accented with a smug half-smile. Other flowers snickered as they nodded in agreement. Some rolled their eyes and appeared annoyed at the comments.

“Sit down, Violet. I think you’ve done enough talking for one day,” she said to the nervous girl who had been standing to speak. The look on her face as she sat back down broke my heart a bit, and I felt a surge of energy building up in my gut. I turned to the girl who had interrupted and gave her the coldest look I could muster, “Do you want to tell me why exactly it matters so much?

My words sent the rest of the girls into a laughing fit. When Narcissus finished getting rid of her giggles, she leaned over to speak, “So, we have a pretty strict set of standards in our Garden. Only the most beautiful get in, they're the only ones worth all the effort - and only the strongest survive.” She ended the sentence with an unnerving grin creeping onto her lips. I asked what she meant by that.

“Well,” she said, “Nature is a harsh mistress, y’know? The real world will leave you beaten and bloodied if you let it, so you just have to learn to endure, however you can. That’s just how it is.” She shrugged.

“Roses have thorns, belladonnas are poisonous, you find ways to keep yourself alive when everyone is after you.” I must have looked confused because she lightly rolled her eyes before elaborating,

“Look, the prettiest flowers are always the first to get picked, right? A very flattering situation, sure, but you’re almost guaranteed to die quicker that way: displayed or given away, doomed to be gazed at until you wilt, withering away in shop windows. Then, get thrown away once the ugliness becomes too much for them to bear. Despite all that, a lot of girls are desperate to be picked. It’s hard to blame them. We’re kind of raised to believe that’s our only purpose; and other flowers will find way to take down the competition, or burn them somehow..” She pointed to the rose joint being passed around, now at the opposite side of the table, “And how can you argue with that? Some flowers were just made to be burned.”

I couldn’t tell you how much time passed. I can’t remember any of it clearly, aside from the smoking and sweets. Everything they talked about was related to other people, usually people I didn’t know; so, none of the conversations stuck in my memory - up until the end.

The end, I remember vividly. It had felt as though so much time was going by, but the Sun was still in its early morning position - just after the sunrise had faded. I'd been silent for longer than I'd realized while the girls talked amongst themselves. All of a sudden, I felt eyes on me.

I looked up to see Narcissus with her eyes locked on me. She wore a disapproving expression, and narrowed her eyes before speaking,

"You've been awfully quiet, love. Wanna share your thoughts with the class?"

I sat with my mouth slightly agape, stunned into silence. "I don't remember," I answered truthfully. As soon as she'd put me on the spot, my mind had gone blank like a shaken Etch-A-Sketch. She only scoffed as her expression turned triumphant.

"Get out."

She said it so plainly, with no hesitation or further deliberation. I knew I was supposed to move, but I couldn’t. I had nowhere else to go that I could think of. Not knowing where to go kept me frozen in place. I could hardly hear over my heart beating out of my chest. I closed my eyes; and suddenly, I was somewhere else.

I hadn’t moved a muscle, but I was now in…the dark? I don’t know if I could call it a room, since I couldn’t see the walls. It was just black everywhere with no dimension to it. All around me, images started appearing and moving all of a sudden - memories. Old euphoric moments with friends that had felt like a movie, time with my mother and grandmothers, every girl I'd ever spent time with - it should have warmed my heart. I suppose it did for a moment, but it was immediately followed with the heavy, cold feeling in my stomach as I remembered how things ended, how I’d acted, and the moments of betrayal and humiliation. I was only a kid, even as I grew into adulthood. I don’t think I ever really aged past a certain point. I know that I was still learning and growing; but the shame made me ache all the same. I had been explosive, vengeful, destructive, impulsive - and I couldn’t do anything to take away the pain I’d inflicted. I felt my face get warm and my heartbeat started drumming faster. The rage and self-loathing built up slowly in my chest, and the shame started to overwhelm my senses, until I couldn’t help but scream to release the pressure in my head.

And just like that, I was back to the Garden.

My eyes widened in horror. Again, I felt my jaw drop; this time, in horrible awe. I could only sit there and watch as everything before me burned to ashes. None of the girls were anywhere to be seen, yet there were no bodies strewn about. Just ashes - all over the tables and chairs, piles had formed all over the ground and started to gather in the corners. The hedges and wisteria were still burning, but the fire wasn't the right color. The flames licking up at the early morning sky were green.

I don’t know how I did it, but I knew that this was somehow my fault. I looked down at my hands, but I couldn’t see them clearly. I looked back to the fires. All I could do was stare as tears started welling up and spilling down my face. All I could do was look at what I'd done.