: do not give in to evil but proceed ever more boldly against it :

Grace in Breckenridge

This is a story I wrote for my wife, Laura, on our fourth anniversary, which we celebrated yesterday.

Grace in Breckenridge
by Drex Davis
June 2, 2005

In the town of Breckenridge lived two sisters - cherubic little girls. But these were not your ordinary, “run-of-the-mill” cherubs. These two were more splendid than that. If you can imagine silver clouds on a platinum sky, illuminated by a gold sun, then you can imagine how the cheeks on these sisters’ faces shone. Their big blue-green eyes radiated like the sun off deep seawater.

The two sisters always wore cherry red dresses embroidered with white flowers around the hem. Their mother tied their hair in scarves, to keep it off their faces. And, fresh faced, every day they sang as they minced through the wildflowers towards the orchards.

In the shade of the orchards grew an extraordinarily colorful and exotic flower. No one knew how the flower had gotten there, but tradition had it that it was planted by an old hermit hundreds of years before - a man who washed up on the nearby sea-shore in a pink canoe and lived on the orchard fruit.

The flower was so beautiful that when people first saw it they would stop in their tracks and stare at it, glassy-eyed, as if they had been hypnotized. It was shaped like a sunflower, but smaller. The first thing you noticed was the soft, pink petals that seemed to wave and smile in the breeze. Following a pedal inward, one noticed that the center face was encircled by a band of blue. It looked like the iris of an eye, and it twinkled warm and vibrant in the sunlight. In fact, the whole flower looked like an Egyptian eye ringed by long pink lashes. And just as the iris of this eye was a breathtaking blue, the inner circle it surrounded, the pupil, was no less impressive. The center was round and raised, like a pregnant stone, encrusted with a crisscross pattern of jade and emerald scrawl. It shown like a beetle’s back at noonday. The light danced differently through the emerald than it did through the jade, so that the flower never looked the same from any two angles. Each place from which you viewed it was a new picture. A picture the girls loved.

The flower grew from a vibrant green plant, which was beautiful in itself, but which often went unnoticed by observers, if only because the radiance of the flower distracted them from the warm, beautiful green leaves below.

Only one such flower ever grew from the plant at a time. And though the villagers tried to plant and scatter seeds from the plant, no other flowers ever grew which looked like this one.

But the wonderful thing was, if you picked the flower the plant would grow an identical one the next day.

So everyday at midmorning before running home for lunch the two little girls carefully picked the flower. They would pick it down low so that it had lots of stem, and then carefully carry it home to their mother. Every day while the girls ate their lunch, their mother would fill a crystal vase with shimmering water, and delicately place in it the flower. After lunch, they would look at the flower and no matter what, no matter how hard the day had been, the flower would fill them with such cheer that they would sing and dance as they cleaned up the meal. They would make up songs as they danced. That particular day they sang:

“I saw a flower in the shade
and it filled my soul with the cheer it made
so I bottled it up and carried it home
but in the morning the glory was gone”

And that’s the way it was, just like they sang in the last line of the song. The flower would shine all day, but in the morning it would be wilted and limp. No matter what they tried they could not keep it alive till the next morning.

Still, everyday when they went back to the orchard, there would be one new, beautiful flower that had grown overnight.

That is the way their days passed, happily and contented. And at the center of their happy lives lay a flower that daily came freely to them.

But then one day, it all changed.

On a sunny Monday in April the girls arrived at the orchard. They were skipping and giggling, but suddenly stopped in mid-leap. Their stomachs dropped. The younger girl let out a yelp. The plant had not grown a flower!

They rushed to the plant and combed through the leaves.

“It has to be here somewhere,” said the older girl. “Keep looking.”

They wondered aloud whether the flower had already been picked by someone else that morning. They looked at the plant stems closely. No, there was no fresh cut stem. They looked at the damp ground around the plant. Only their little footprints had smudged the earth. No other footprints were there.

Could it be?

Yes, they cried. The plant had not grown the flower.

Dejected, the sat in the shade a while and said nothing. After a time, they trudged home for lunch.

“No flower!” their mother cried when they arrived home. “Oh what a dreary day this is!”

In silence they ate their lunch, staring at the walls, for there was no flower to look at. The said nothing because there was not flower to talk about. When they cleaned up their meal that day, there were no songs or dances, just an empty silence.

Finally, the older of the girls said, “Well, maybe the flower will be there tomorrow.”

Her younger sister and mother brightened for a moment.

“Yes, maybe you’re right,” said the mother. But after a moment, the cheer smoldered and then snuffed out like the last coal hanging on from a winter campfire. Something did not feel right.

The next day their fears were confirmed, and again confirmed the day after that, and the day after that. All week the flower was gone, and through the weekend too.

It was bad enough that the flower was gone. But what made the girls sadder was how cold their home had become. Because there was no flower, there was nothing to admire and discuss at lunch, and there were no songs and dances after lunch. The girls started noticing one another’s annoyances more frequently. A heaviness and darkness came over the house. They squabbled more. They smiled less. They never danced.

For a whole week they sullenly moped to the orchard, not speaking to one another, and still no flower grew.

The following Monday, as they sat in the shade of the orchard, suddenly the younger one spoke.

“Why don’t we ask the plant what happened?”

And so they did.

“You talk,” said the younger, “you’re older.”

The older on did not object. She took a deep breath, then bent over, touched her lips to a leaf, and said, “Plant, why have you not grown your flower? Please tell us why.”

Then they stooped to the ground, rested their heads on the leaves, and strained their ears to hear the plant’s reply.

The plant started up - were they speaking to her? Yes, yes they were! She brightened and stood up straight. She had wanted to speak to the girls, wanting to explain.

At first the girls heard nothing, but soon a wind gusted through the orchard and brushed through the plant’s leaves. A rustling aired up, and within it they detected the sound of a still, small voice, like velvet caressing velvet.

The plant spoke.

“I’ll tell you what happened, but listen closely, for I am very tired. Did you know that it was I who made the flower? It did not make itself. Every night by the light of the moon I toiled sleeplessly so that the flower would be here in the morning when you returned. It was the same monotonous work every day. And I simply grew tired of giving when nothing was returned to me.”

The plant drooped and stopped speaking.

The older girl pled, “Go on, please!”

The plant continued, “Everyday I took great delight in feeling your hands on my leaves and stems. I felt happy to see the joy on your face as you took the gift I created for you, and freely gave you. And those feelings carried me through night after night, as I create the next day’s flower. But after a time, it was not enough. I noted that I longed for more. Occasionally, I needed to hear you say ‘thank you,’ so that I’d have the reassurance that my work made a difference.”

The plant paused, and then asked, “Did it make a difference?”

“Oh!” the girls squealed, “So much! Our house has not been the same without your flowers. There is no singing, no dancing, and no cheer. Oh how we miss your flowers! You must know what has happened since you stopped spinning the flower!”

And they rehearsed to her every bit of glumness they and their mother had endured without the flower.

The plant smiled, as only plants do. She was happy. It was not that the plant felt joy in their sadness, but that for the first time she understood what her efforts had meant to the girls and their mother. “It’s been such a long time since someone thanked me. My heart just grew heavy, and I had no more strength to work through the night.”

“Oh, I am so sorry that I have not thanked you. But I will thank you now. Thank you!” shrieked the older girl.

“Yes, thank you!” echoed the younger. “We are sorry! We had no idea that plants had such feelings!”

They reached out and caressed the plant’s leaves. The plant warmed.

“Come back tomorrow,” the plant said. “And you will have the most glorious flower of all. I will be busy tonight.”

“Thank you,” cried the girls, and raced home to tell their mother all they had learned.

And thus it ended, happily. The girls learned to say thank you to the source of so much of their joy and happiness. And the plant learned, too. She learned that when it comes to little girls, sometimes the greatest sign of their gratitude is that they keep coming back for more.

Copyright Drex Davis 2005

June 3, 2005 | Filed Under Short Stories 

comments

3 Responses to “Grace in Breckenridge”

  1. charlie on July 8th, 2005

    I love this story.

  2. Porter on July 25th, 2005

    I hope someday, your talents can be fully realized by many more people than have been already. What a sweet story.

  3. Kahna (Rowley) Cutler on June 25th, 2006

    You probably don’t remember me, but we were in most of our high school English classes together. What an amazing talent you have for storytelling! Thank you for sharing this with readers. I think we all feel like the plant from time to time. What a lovely gift for your wife. Best of luck in the future!
    Kahna Cutler