Positive Emotions

The flower sat on the window sill as a reminder of positive emotions. It was a marigold and it was a bright resilient orange. It was starting to get leggy, straggly at its stem; it looked forlorn as it had been there for some time in its pot. Brownness was encroaching on its edges, eroding its leaves and causing them to tatter; like rags and bags caught forever on a fence, unable to escape the merciless, relentless wind, waiting to disintegrate. Summer was almost over and it would die. It had dry soil with a crispy crust, scattered with vermiculite from the once healthy potting mix. Its stem and leaves had once been a vibrant green but now it looked like a child's drawing of a flower, coloured with cheap acrylic paints from the dollar store that were too thin and presented colour like a veil, not a brick. It was fading and no-one was there to notice except her.

Eventually, its flowerhead would wrinkle and shrink, eventually becoming a seedhead and the chance of furthering its kind would be offered in the form of long, black seeds, like the filaments of nature's paintbrush. Someone may pick them and plant them; someone may pick them and scatter them; someone may gather them and keep them safe in an envelope for the future; someone may dispose of them at the same time as the plant and they would sink into the dark depths of landfill, possibly to bloom, possibly not.

It was a sad thing to contemplate this flower, this marigold. A symbol of something vibrant, something positive which was losing its power. A representation of a life that beamed but was now fading, the gradually washed out colours of its petals still attached, testament to its blooming, its previous strength, given with verve and energy while it could; the petals that had fallen, sacrificed at the pot's base like supplicants at a temple, bent and tired and pleading.

The woman stared at the flower from her reclined position on the couch, the empty drink bottle at her side. Her lucidity and poetical analysis of the marigold were unprecedented; she had never seen things so clearly. The flower and its power were helping her see. She was achieving clarity through its presence. She was reaching for its meaning as a lifeline, as a chance to be reborn.

She wished that she had the chance to be scattered, to have little pieces of herself reseed and regrow and to be given the opportunity to shine again. And not just once, but in an abundance, over and over again, propagating a patch of golden loveliness to brighten and glow, standing strong and tall and bouncing in the wind.

The thought of this was fine, she thought and her head was filled with the brilliance of marigolds. She wanted to preserve her flower, conserve it; take its essence and present its beauty to others in the form of art. A painting of the marigold would do it justice and she too could endure through this image, through her creation of its likeness, her mirroring of its splendour. She could be associated with its beautiful fleeting form forever. Gazing, the marigold’s fiery approval of this idea made her lift her head, willing her to motivation, to produce.

But she knew that it was temporary; that her mind would become again like the wilting flower on the sill; that the marigold was only representative of positive emotions; an envoy sent with a message that was not tangible; a creator of feelings which could not be kept. They may come again but there would be a darkness between.

It was only a matter of time.

The thought leadened her, immobilised her, weighed her down. The marigold, like a sentinel, held her eye, a positive beacon in contrast to the dark recesses of her mind but unable to conquer a negative history. Eyes narrow, sleep descending, bottle falling, flower fading.