Fleeting Infinity

The grass stands at attention as if conscripted, lancing my bare legs at the slightest movement. My fingers tug absentmindedly at it.

Staring down at the green blade in my hand, I delicately peel away the layers protecting bright green innards.

"Green is my favourite colour"

I am suddenly distracted from my amateur dissection by a beetle flying past me and coming in to land, rather clumsily I might add. He is boasting a heavy suit of armour that causes the flower to bend wearily. Fluttering his hard-shelled wings a few times, the two pairs of softer wings are aligned and stacked in place. Hidden.

He detects every vibration, antenna see-saw scanning. After a few seconds, with a smug glow, he promptly begins the bumpy expedition towards the treasure trove he seeks. The beetle is nothing but a brief weight on a blooming flower, who, while asleep, is powerless to defend his advances. The beetle is compelled by an innate drive to feed and fumbles about on her petals trying to find the best approach.

I am convinced that he must feel completely entitled to enjoy this momentary victory. He found it, he has traversed it and one could argue that it is, after all, in full bloom. What should become of such a flower, reaching up with a joyful yawn to the morning sun, spilling sweetness into the air? He found it.

Do flowers exist to be pillaged? Is this a penance for the vibrance and perfume they are blessed with?

A gloomy musing that is forgotten as quickly as it had arrived.

The summer show is in full swing. Cape Marigold's storm forward, demanding attention with orange, yellow and white dresses twirling. They pirouette through a bed of Sweet Alyssum, the dainty white flowers foaming up from the ground.

My eyes drift further along and I hear laughter echoing, as purple pansies stare back. Faces inverted and eyes fixed, like barn owls with their heads on a swivel. I smile, acknowledging the unique beauty and character that each flower brings.

The final crescendo, Agapanthus tower and bend in every direction, erupting like fireworks above the bed below.

A muted ‘THUMP’ pulls me from my dream parade. I instinctively know that a walnut has found its freedom from the tree adjacent. I make a mental note to collect it before it succumbs to the heat and humidity, but that can wait. I lie back and welcome the thick summer air like a blanket, baking with the earth beneath me. Here in the garden, with life teeming around me, I can feel small and large, alone and connected. I am home. Paradise.

My eyes are heavy and slowly close...

Darkness fills the world.

“Not quite right..”

A distant voice yawns.

“This… feels strange.”

A muttering breath, close to my ear.

A stinging ache fills my belly. Pressure, unwelcome and unfamiliar. I don’t want to leave the garden just yet.

The pansies jerk in and out of view. Their faces shift like a frantic mob. Something sinister sits hollow behind their eyes now, pity. I squirm and wriggle like an earthworm who has been wronged by unyielding light. Confused and betrayed at an intrusion it cannot comprehend.

“Let me out!”

My eyes reluctantly comply.

Someone's hand is pushing me down, the weight crushing my sternum. My arms are numb and out of view. Eyes fixated, deranged. Sweat drips onto my bare chest.

Someone is panting.

Someone is taking from me.

Too suddenly awake, reality ushers in deafening sounds. A woman screams, pointing. Red-faced. My body jolts and shivers inanimately. Gagging like a patient having a breathing tube removed.

A man's misplaced laughter. Foggy words and a kiss on the forehead. An imitation of tenderness met only with breathless fear that clogs my throat. The ache in my belly disappears, my chest expands and blood tingles into my arms. Despite the weight being lifted, what I feel is not relief. For a second, I swear I see a beetle crawling into a crevice on the ceiling.

It’s funny what will be dragged to the surface when your mind is faced with extremes.

A son laughs as he is told of his fathers passing.

A mother berates a child once thought lost in a crowd.

A sinner recites the Good Book as he paces the floor of his cell.

At this moment, my mind is a sparking wheel. An accelerant, reeling me into space. The world outside moves like a glacier in the distance. My thoughts are flooded and empty.

Someone found me.

My brain tries to find reason, to keep me from imploding when everything around me demands a sonic boom. I remember my physics professor, an echo reverberating to meet me...

"Time slows to a halt as objects approach the speed of light, and light fades to darkness at the centre of time."