Love Short Story – The Death of a Flower
Love Short Story – The Death of a Flower
Photo credit: imelenchon from morguefile.com
The death of a flower. It wilts and twists and turns and eventually lays to the ground- unloved and barren. Empty and clustered among the tethered. It dissipates into from where it began- the cold, damp earth.
It is loved when it blooms and ignored when falling into the depths of age. It is forsaken, and pushed into the dark, unknown abyss.
That was her life. The life of the great actress. Sherry, they addressed her. Sherry, I called her.
They loved her and adored her. The way she walked across a room caught all eyes and hushed all voices. Her body draped anything and everything with a scintillating flawlessness.
The lights flashing and the fans screaming was all but life to her. It was all she ever needed.
I was a journalist, a mere commoner in comparison to her. Like everyone else, I too was held tight by the threads of affection to her. It took just one interview for her to show off and shower me with all her charms and spells.
“So, how was this fame and fortune coming down on you?”
She gave her iconic chuckle and then took a sip of her whiskey.
“They don’t weigh on me. I float on them.”
We both looked at each other and clicked.
I saw her again many times in the next few years. Watching her rise higher into the fames and glitz of the silver screen. But just as the years passed by, so did the people. The audience started to fade away with her coming to the golden ages. The passion for the skin snatched her fans to the younger, fresher faces into the cinemas.
The tabloids pasted her pictures- depressed and lonely. The darkness in her face was unnerving and gloomy. She almost never stepped out of the home and when she did, it was always the alcohol making her take those steps.
It was a few weeks ago that my telephone rang. It was her voice, I knew. She wanted me to come down and take an interview. She said that she had “something to say to the world.”
I walked into the room. The long red drapes were drawn and the smell of cigarettes and Bordeaux was a heavy atmosphere. I found her waiting in her armchair, wearing a white silk gown and blushing red lipstick.
“So you came,” She said to me. I took the chair facing her and clicked my pen. I rested my hand on the paper and waited for her to speak.
“Why are you always to formal?” She said and took the paper and pen from my hand. She held in closer to caress, leaving a smudge on my face.
She looked at me and smiled. Her wrinkled skin was no change to her ever-beautiful personality. The difference in this smile was that it wasn’t made up. It wasn’t asked for. It wasn’t being waited on. It flowed. From the corners of her mouth to the light in her eyes- all were genuine.
And it was in this moment, that I truly fell for her. Her- not the face pasted on posters all over, but the woman she truly, truly was.
She was drunk and spoke all about her life and how she felt.
I was just listening to her- no pen, no paper.
“Oh, this world is a materialistic place. They take you, they leave you. They left me! Oh dear!” She moaned in pain and coughed up the alcohol.
“So, will you leave now too?” She asked.
“I can stay,” I replied.
“But well, you’ll leave now too. Speak all about your very personal interview. You’re all the same, aren’t you? Love you and love you till the director says ‘Cut’!” She hurled her glass towards me. “All the same. All the same. All of you. My skin is crumpled, my bones brittle, my voice feeble. Heavy reasons to hate!”
She now looked at me with eyes that burnt with a fire of betrayal and loneliness. “Leave. Leave at one, I say!” She yelled and fell to the floor. I took her in my arms- her sobs quiet.
“I don’t care about your wrinkles. I don’t care what the number on your birthday cake is. I don’t care about what anyone says. Neither should you.”
And I left.
A few days later, I got the news of her passing. My heart at once pinched with a strong pain. I knew what got to her.
They let her die. The audience she so madly loved. Their abandonment let her into the darkness. And now the flower is dead. My flower is dead.
Love is a scene best at a single take.
__END__
