The Canna Lily

Walking through the door of her apartment for the first time in what, to her, seemed ages with a small bag of groceries, the young woman let out a relieved sigh. She walked to her counter in her small kitchen and dropped her burden down. She looked about the meagerly sized room, with its modest furnishings, assessing that all was as she had left it those several weeks ago. She smiled as she judged that nothing had been disturbed in her absence (she had a neighbor girl water her tiny desk plants).

She began to unpack her groceries to prepare her night’s meal as she remembered her several weeks away. Having felt the call to improve the lives of the unfortunate in a foreign land, she selflessly packed her bags and left on the first flight away with a missionary group dedicated to aiding the sick and starving. There she had been amazed by the suffering and hunger experienced by those poor souls. “What a world,” she thought to herself as she set out the components of her dinner (potatoes, a small bundle of asparagus, and a beautiful slab of beef for which she had haggled her local butcher for a deduction in price).

The young woman looked over to her favorite precious little desk plant sitting on her windowsill. It was a beautiful young canna lily, blooming in life and majesty. The neighbor girl must have taken extra care of it, as under the care of the young woman, it had been slowly wilting to nothingness despite all the efforts the young woman made to nurture it.

Grabbing a large kitchen knife, the young woman began to prepare her meal, first chopping potatoes and slicing the undesirable bits off the meat. Tossing the potatoes into the oven and placing the slab of delectable meat onto a skillet, a wonderous aroma spread throughout the apartment.

Praising herself for this accomplishment, a loud rapping on the windowpane cut through the sizzling from the skillet. Slightly annoyed but mostly frightened (a young woman must be careful living on the ground floor after all, but she oh so hated stairs), she went over to the window still bearing knife in hand. The young woman gasped in shock and horror as she saw, outside in the torrential rain, stood a tall and skinny creature, draped in a long black hooded robe. “What a monster!” the young woman exclaimed as it went on tapping on the windowpane.

“Go away!” the young woman yelled at the creature. It kept on tapping and scrapping its horrendous fingers on the panes, as if trying to open the window. Furiously and desperately its pleading taps grew frightfully louder and faster with each strike of thunder in the distance. “Go away!” the young woman screamed again, this time brandishing her knife to the creature. Terrified, it jumped back from the window and scuttled away into the darkness of the storm.

Still slightly fuming over the trouble but pleased by her acts of heroic self-defense, the young woman glanced down at her precious canna lily to ensure it had not been disturbed during the brief ordeal. One of the petals had nearly completely wilted, blackening horrendously among the red of the other petals.

Two thoughts entered the young woman’s mind. Firstly, the oddity of the matter. After all, just several moments ago, the flower was perfectly bloomed, not a blemish anywhere to be found. How could a healthy flower wilt so dreadfully so quickly? This, however, quickly gave way to the second (and more compelling) thought: that this most certainly will not do. Deciding to not allow whatever caused the petal to wilt so quickly to spread, the young woman cut off the offending appendage with her knife, still in hand, and tossed it into the garbage can in her kitchen.

Once again pleased with her course of action, she returned to making her supper. Potatoes in the oven not quite finished, she flipped over the steak in the skillet, once again arousing a glorious sizzle and delectable aroma which filled the apartment. She undid the bundle of asparagus and carefully selecting which ones were acceptable for her consumption, discarding any that did not meet her standards. Once more picking up her knife, she began to cut each stock to the perfect size.

Cooking her dinner now reminded her of her trip to the foreign land, and of all the cooking she did there for the sick and hungry. She thought of the smiles she helped place on the gaunt faces of children and the relieved looks of parents grateful that their children were being fed as well as themselves. The young woman began to ponder how the world could be so selfish as to let those poor creatures starve while hording all the world’s plentiful gifts.

Her thoughts about the selfishness of humanity were interrupted, however, by a sharp pain in the finger. She looked down and saw blood running down her finger. Having been completely lost in angrily steamed thought, the young woman had carelessly sliced open her finger. “Damn it!” she exclaimed to herself as she began frantically searching her apartment for bandages. She was unable to find any, however, as she had brought and used all the bandages she had on her trip as a precaution and forgotten to purchase more from the market before returning home.

While she began to look around for a suitable substitute, she heard more tapping at the window. Infuriated, she stormed to the window and saw the creature had returned. It mixed its tapping at the windowpanes with sharp points downward toward a small box of bandages sitting on the outside sill. Looking down at her finger, which was beginning to bleed all over the carpet, the young woman felt she had no choice but to accept the creature’s offering. She slowly began to open the window and, once it had opened just enough to reach her hand through, she reached out and snatched the bandages and pulled them back inside.

Suddenly, the creature shot out a hand and grabbed the bottom of the windowpane, trying to pull it open more. The young woman, with knife thankfully still in hand, slashed at the creature’s fingers, nearly slicing them off completely. It shrieked horrendously and ran back into the darkness of the storm once again.

The young woman bandaged her finger to stop the bleeding but saw that the windowsill was now a bloody mess. She grabbed a rag from the kitchen and began to wipe all the blood from the wood. While doing this chore, she noticed again how the canna lily sitting on the sill had begun to wilt, this time all the petals and nearly all the stem. The once magnificent flower now a rotten black monstrosity. Frustrated and annoyed, the young woman decided to speak to the neighbor girl in the morning about the state of the flower, for it was perfectly healthy just several moments ago and this sudden decay defied all logic regarding the laws of nature.

Returning to the kitchen, the young woman finally finished preparing her dinner. She sat down at her small dining table to enjoy her meal, all the while eating pondering again how the world could be so selfish and cruel to not share its good fortune and blessings with those that were starved and suffering. After having her fill of not quite half her plate (she always cooked more than she could handle), she dropped the scraps into the garbage can and prepared herself for sleep.

She turns off her lights in her apartment and begins to drift off. Right before she is fully embraced by sleep, there is a sudden crash. Frightened, she jumps up in bed to see the creature climbing through the broken window, illuminated only by the lightening of the storm still raging. She screams as it runs into the kitchen and grabs the knife. She begs for mercy, but it seems to refuse to listen. The creature drives the knife into the young woman’s stomach, and her life and her blood seep out of her body. The creature goes to the garbage can in the kitchen and begins feeding on the scraps from the young woman’s dinner. Just before the darkness overcomes her, the young woman looks to the canna lily still sitting on the windowsill, blooming back to life.