Forever Flora

Flora McQueen’s relationship with the plant kingdom started developing before her twentieth year. The enjoyment she derived from growing lima beans in her second grade class—watching them push through the soil with tightly furled leaves…mesmerized Flora. She got hooked. Her green thumb had been conceived, and grew.

A few men entered and faded from Flora’s life; she unconsciously accepted, or rejected men because of how they interfaced with her plants. One husband sought her affection by plying her with gifts of these little green “creatures.” Another brought so much anguish to Flora and her plants, that a lot of them up and died. Their environment was dark and dank, and always seemed to have a late afternoon sun, that rarely warmed them…or there was no sun at all. Flora left that relationship, and that house, taking the few remaining survivors with her.

As Flora matured in years, she subconsciously gave first consideration to her plants regarding where she chose to live; where they would receive a lot of sun, fresh air and room to grow. Her skills with raising these plants and young trees improved. Flora immersed herself in books about how to take care of sick plants, raising healthy plants, how to insure good color and strength in her plants, as well as, how to take cuttings to cultivate starts for new plants.

One day, she had found an obscure, infrequently visited greenhouse, owned and operated by an eccentric, stooped, but friendly old woman. Flora amazed herself at her own actions, as the result of her visit there.

“Look Travis,” Flora called to her husband from the garage. “Just look what I have brought home?”

Travis rolled his eyes. “Oh no, Honey. Plants and trees are going to move us out of our own house. Please take some of then back!” he begged her.

As excited as she was, Flora was also vehemently stubborn. “No!” she pouted. “They need a home! I looked at some of the other plants in the greenhouse, and you know what? she tried to humor him. “It looked like some of them hadn’t been watered for well over a week! And with this drought going on…!”

Travis just shook his head. Reluctantly, he still helped her carry in the heavier plants and the few trees she had rescued. It seemed as if he had to make more trips to unload the van of the plants than he had mentally calculated.

“Flora!” he called out to her in exasperation, “what are they doing out there? They’re multiplying like rabbits out there, it seems!” he exclaimed, still more exasperated more than puzzled over his wife’s compulsiveness.

Travis sat down in the livingroom, after lugging a particularly heavy ficus tree in from the garage. He looked around. Live greenery was everywhere! Meantime, Flora was humming and smiling to herself, and preparing to make room for the many new additions to their home.

Flora found that one of the larger plants needed re-potting, immediately. Its growth was stunted, and she found that when she removed the plant from its container, the roots looked like cold spaghetti noodles, lifted out of a giant Tupperware container.

“Poor thing,” she murmured, as she patted the fresh dirt over the plant’s roots, after she had transferred it to the new pot. Before her eyes, the plant seemed to stretch its roots and leaves, as if awakening from a long nap. Her eyes widened in disbelief, but her face relaxed into a faraway and knowing smile.

Travis was oblivious to Flora’s witnessing of the phenomenon before her. He shook his head for the second time. Sometimes his wide was just plain weird.

In passing days, Flora lovingly cared for her plants, dressing them in decorative pots; fertilizing them, and killing any parasites that invaded their “homes.” They depended on Flora for food, water and vitamins to thrive in their unnatural environment of her home. Flora spoke aloud one day, with no one but herself and the plants present.

“I know that the meadows, grassy and wooded areas are more suitable as home for you guys, but you started out in a greenhouse. You’ve never had to survive on your own in the outdoors. I hope you are happy here. I just love taking care of you,” Flora whispered to the room

But Flora did not limit herself to caring for green plants. In the spring and summer, she had hanging baskets of flowers, and bedding flowers, which she temporarily had for only the warmer seasons. But in the fall, they died, as she knew they always would. It was the natural order of flowering plants such as these.

It was winter. The first winter with all of these green plants and trees that she had acquired in the spring. She gathered all of them around her to give them their winder grooming, and special care necessary for living in the unnatural environment for this season.

Flora looked at all of them around her, with a quizzical look.

“You are all so dry! I’ve watered you enough this week.” She bent down to the floor, a puzzling look spread across her face.

“Why, you’re crying…and coughing! What can I do?” She looked around in bewilderment. What do I do now? she wondered. Of course, they could not answer her.

After much thought, Flora did do something. She bought them a humidifier, to create moisture in the dry, winter heat. Once again, she seemed to know the secret of what they needed from her.

Over the next several months, Flora experienced a sort of personality transformation. She consulted a therapist, at the strong suggestions of her husband. The owlish-looking, sixty-ish psychologist chirped out therapeutic remedies with such a matter-of-fact attitude.

“Darling, Flora! You mush find a substitute for your lack of having any children of your own. Something to which you can open your heart. Or relate to—like kittens, or antique collecting…gerbils!” The good doctor giggled.

Dr. Gushee seemed so thrilled at her own suggestions. She clasped her hands like a delight child, “Yes! Gerbils! I understand that some of the most affectionate substitutions for a baby are furry, cuddly rodents. Try them….you’ll see!” her doctor encouraged.

Flora looked at Dr. Gushee in disbelief.

“But I already have a lot of children. My plants. Flowers. Trees. And I'm not sorry that they are all that I have!” she cried out.

Not discouraged, the well-meaning doctor pushed her glasses up her long nose, and peered through them at Flora.

“Well, my dear…it seems that three little sessions has helped bring out and clear up the issue rather nicely! Shall we meet again in say, um--- six months? Is that agreeable to you, dear?”

Flora bobbed her head, a child-like smile stealing across her face.

Later that night, Flora awakened from a bad dream, with an abruptness that brought her to her feet. She left Travis, who was gently snoring on his side of the bed, and pitter-pattered down the hall to the kitchens. She had not put on her glasses, and the dark Great Room loomed eerily before her—sending chills through her as when she would take the first step down the basement stairs at night, when Travis wasn’t home yet.

In her nearsightedness, Flora misjudged her walking path. She stepped into her seven-foot tree’s branches, and winced as they roughly scratched her face. Dazed, Flora stepped back, only to feel a gentle pressure against her back. The tree’s lower branches had encircled the sleepy woman, and hugged her close.

Flora opened her mouth to scream with all of her might, but her throat muscles froze in terror. All went yet blacker, and she slept.

It was 6:30am. Travis awakened to find an empty spot in the bed next to him. He lay on his back, trying to wake-up. What was Flora up to? She had been acting really strange…for going on a year. Being pre-occupied with his own work-life, he had pushed her strange behavior to the back of his mind. He swung his feet out of the bed, rubbed his matter hair and headed out to the kitchen. Without having to look for more than a few seconds, Travis spotted the tiny form of his wife in her nightshirt, stretched out on the floor in peaceful slumber.

He gently prodded her. “Is this a new Yoga sleeping method, or something,? he asked her. He was curious but becoming accustomed to her eccentric behavior.

Flora smiled with her eyes still closed, having heard her husband’s teasing remark. She responded to him.

“I came out here for a drink, and got a little dizzy from getting up too quickly. I guess I just fell asleep.” She went on, “Don’t worry. I didn’t bang my head.” She patted the ceramic tile around her. “Nope. None of my marbles are out here!? She squealed as she jumped to her feet.

“I love you, Honey,” Travis crooned, “I’m just a little worried about you, that’s all.” He swung her off her feet and covered her with kisses.

Later that day, Flora noticed the scratches on her face; they were few in number and faint. It was the welts on the backs of her arms that stopped her dead in her tracks, and sent a chaotic smattering of fragmented questions to her conscious thoughts.

It was a bright 75 degree morning, and Flora took advantage of the early morning by doing some work outside in her flower garden. She weeded and pruned her roses, marigolds, assorted ivys and begonias. As she worked, she did not notice the sky clouding up. As the first couple of drops hit the tops of her hands, she squinted up at the hazy sky, and saw a black, thundercloud moving in, at a rather unnatural pace,--as if someone had pushed the “fast-forward” button on the weather, Flora thought to herself, then laughed at the absurd idea.

After washing the dirt from her hands under the patio hose, and gathering up the tools she had been using, Flora settled herself into a comfortable lounge chair, and picked up a book to catch up on her reading.

Her eyes spotted the envelope of newly-developed pictures that she had picked up from the drugstore a few hours earlier. Flora eagerly sifted through the momentarily forgotten pictures to view the ones taken of the baby…her twin brother’s child.

Oh, isn’t that wonderful? ---she looks like I did when I was a few months old, Flora thought, as she broadly smiled. But her face began to ache, and the tears rolled down her cheeks, still molded into a smile. They had named the child, Flora destiny McQueen. Flora was secretively glad that she had not taken Travis’s name when they married. Because of that fact, Flora, her brother Floyd, and little Flora Destiny all bore the same last name. Family members were disappointed that Floyd had not had a boy. Flora Destiny would grow up and marry, and give the McQueen name up. Floyd and his wife were not going to have anymore children. What a pity. So Flora hung on to the McQueen name out of respect, honoring her family for as long as she was alive.

Flora put the pictures down, in deep thought.

‘I wonder whey Mama never gave me a middle name?’ she wondered. Feeling as thought she was cheated, Flora had used the letter “F” as her middle initial once she reach junior high school. ‘ “F” or Frannie? Or Florence? No,’ she thought slowly, ‘ “F” is for “Forever.”’

Her mind grew exhausted, as she tried to focus once again on the photographs.

“My children…my immortality. I have none,” Flora grieved. The tears on Flora’s cheeks, and the rain on the windows were cleansing, and comforting the woman’s troubled mind, as well as her plants and flowers outside.

The rain’s steady drumming and the wet, earthy scent brought on a drowsiness to the relaxing gardener.

‘But your children are right here, as we always have been, since the days you recognized us as such. We will see that you live on as a phylum-being,’ the child-like voices chanted to her from different parts of the room.

‘We’ll see that you live on as a phylum-being,” they reassured her.

In her drowsy, semi-conscious mind, Flora tried to question the phenomena unfolding before her, but she plainly wanted to sleep, and accepted all that was transpiring around her.

Flora’s eyes were half-closed, as sleep was overcoming her. Before she lost all consciousness, a distant flash of lightning briefly lit the room. In her dim min’s eye, she saw the sprawling ivy plant about ten feet away slowly creep across the room in very slow, but noticeable motion. As she felt a tickling on her legs, Flora imagined a gentle scratching on her face by the towering ficus tree. Flora succumbed to a world of green and black, as the vine-like philodendron encircled her neck and torso.

Travis was in a rather cheery mood as he came up the driveway. Work had ended on an upbeat note that Friday afternoon, and he had picked up a dozen roses on his way home. He was glad that it had rained that day. Flora had been worrying about the lack of rain the last several weeks.

He entered the house, and called out her name. A few steps took him into the room where Flora was napping. Travis walked over to the chair where his wife was serenely sleeping, an angelic smile on her face. His momentary tenderness turned to alarm, and terror.

Flora was not responding to his gentle shaking of her shoulder. Travis’s breathing became rapid and shallow, when he remembered to breathe. His heartbeat was pulsating out of control.

As he grabbed his wife’s wrists to check for a pulse, he spotted the green streaks that appeared to be grass-like welts. He called the paramedics from the phone on the table next to her chair.

With unusual calm he spoke into the phone, “I need an ambulance. My wide has died. It looks like it was a heart attack.” He slowly hung up the phone.

Travis then started to cry as if his heart was breaking. She was so young. He loved her so very much. But her unhappiness with their lack of children had bothered him in recent months. And there was her very odd behavior.

In a matter of minutes, an ambulance turned into their lane, but the blaring siren was missing. Only the slowly rotating orange lights announced the arrival of the clinical, medical world that would take Flora from him for good.

Travis found Flora’s “bible”, Caring For Your Plants. She had always instructed his to learn about the care of her family of her plants. In the book were some scribbled instructions on a scrap piece of paper: How to Make a Successful Cutting—Regenerating Your Plants. He sat on the floor and read words written in his wife’s own handwriting, some of the most bizarre procedures that he had ever learned of, and came to have a new-found respect for his deceased wife’s past dedication to her plants, and the happiness they had brought to her.

Somehow he made it through the next two days, and then buried Flora on the third. At least seventy people made it out to the cemetery after the service. Flowers of all varieties were laid on her grave.

When the crowd cleared away, Travis went to his car and returned to Flora’s gravesite with a tiny clay pot containing a very small slip from the strong ficus tree. Furtively, he glanced around. Quickly, with his small trowel, he uncovered the area that he had designated to the groundskeeper earlier that day, before the funeral. He gently moved a small area of the dirt away, and his trowel struck something that made a hollow “clank”.

As Travis had instructed, he found the end of the yard-long pipe that extended from right below the surface, down to Flora’s casket. As Travis had made his request to the man to prepare things “just so,” the widower waved two $100 bills under his eyes, silencing the cemetery employee with a glance.

Travis forced the miniature clay pot into the pipe’s opening, and then heard the tiny container clank and scrape as it dropped to its final resting place: on top of Flora’s coffin.

A year had passed. Travis was at the cemetery with a wreath that his close friends had given him, commemorating Flora. The groundskeeper was apparently preparing to now, the jarring noise of the whirring power-mower motor moved Travis into fast-motion toward the man with the machinery.

“STOP!!!!” Travis screamed. “You mow near that tombstone, and I’ll kill you!”

Well, now the grave-digger recognized the crazy man who had given him the insane instructions a year ago, but who also handsomely paid him for his efforts. He knew Travis was harmless…but VERY WEIRD.

He shut down the motor, and took off his baseball cap that protected his bald head from the sun, and wiped the sweat from underneath it.

“Well, I don’t reckon I could cut that there young plant down,” he nodded towards the plant over Flora’s grave, figuring that the threat of doing JUST THAT was what was agitating Travis so.

“That little booger can’t be cut down, NO WAY! Too tough! The old man went on, “Damnedest think I ever seen…!”

Travis returned to his car and returned with a couple of tools, and proceeded to uncover the pipe enough to pull the entire sapling out of the ground, leaving its year-old pot deep in the ground. He transplanted it into a pot that he had brought from home. He then loaded it into his pick-up and drove to that greenhouse where his wife had purchased the multitude of plants about a year and a half earlier.

A stooped little old woman greeted his with, Brought me an orphan, have ya, Son? her eyes twinkled as she feigned a stern look. Her voice, though, did not waver, despite the age of this old woman. It’s velvety quality puzzled Travis. He felt a little unnerved that this Hansel and Gretel setting in the greenhouse at the edge of a woods.

“This plant needs better care than I can provide. Will you keep it in your greenhouse, and take care of it for me? ---I’ll be glad to pay you,” Travis haltingly explained to her his plight. His eyes held the old woman’s gaze for a moment.

“Also,” he went on, “it doesn’t require any fertilization whatsoever. Only sunlight, water …and…and…..” He stopped.

The old woman bowed her head in understanding.

“…just a chance to live on…,” Travis finished with a whisper.

He turned and left.

Travis swore as his car rolled to a stop. He was out of gas. Again. Flora used to get on his repeatedly about getting his gas gauge fixed in the pick-up. He got out, and started walked….having no idea where he was.

He saw a wooded area up ahead, about fifteen minutes into his walk, and welcomed the promise of shade. As he wandered down the little footpath, he came to a fallen tree, and wearily sat down. It had grown hot and humid, and Travis was growing sweaty and itchy from the perspiration already soaking his clothes.

Through the salt-water that was dripping in his eyes from his forehead, Travis saw the old woman from the greenhouse father up ahead in a little cleared patch of grass in the middle of the wooded area. She was bending down, and doing something on the ground with her hands. Out of curiosity, Travis rose up from his seat and slowly crept towards the old woman.

The woman stiffly rose to her feet, stepping to one side. Travis strained to see what she had been doing on the ground. At the old woman’s feet was a newly-transplanted young sapling.

Slowly, she raised her arms up to the sky, her bony, gnarled hands spread open.

“Oh, most Powerful Phyla,” she changed, with closed eyes, “take this tiny sapling to your world…where the treetops touch the sky, and beyond---to the World Everlasting!”

Travis was entranced. It slowly dawned on him: the purpose of Flora’s plants, and the old woman, Flora’s “bible”---everything was made startlingly clear.

Before the old woman lowered her outstretched hands, something odd caught Travis’s peripheral vision. He focused, and quietly gasped. The old woman’s two thumbs were not the same tissue-paper white as was the rest of the skin on her hands and arms. they were curiously, brilliantly, yet un-mistakenly……green.

The characters are real people....the storyline is fictitious to a point. This is for all of the

women in the world, who wanted to be mothers and could not - by circumstances outside

of their control.

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