![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Flowers and Thorns
May. 17th, 2006 06:00 pm
Heading east out of town along the road I still know so well-- the road leading to the hilltop house my mom and dad had built back in 1968-- I fell in behind a line of cars. This was just where you leave the flat fields and take that first dive over the edge into Yellow Line Lane, the five-mile-long no-passing zone.
The lead car was an immaculate mid-60s Ford convertible, top down. It was metallic blue, one of those Colors Not Found in Nature that Ford was so fond of back then. It had four teenagers aboard. The girls were in back, having fun, waving their hands over their heads in the wind.
They were a little below the speed limit, but fast enough for such a twisting road. That wasn't enough for the black GTO behind me, though. It blasted past me and the line of cars at the worst possible place, where the road goes up and then down a steep hill, makes a hard turn left, and then an equally hard turn right around the base of a small, steep drumlin-- and just around that blind curve is a crossroads. Worst intersection in the whole county, as far as I know.
Anyway, the GTO blasted by, incredibly loud, the passenger giving us all the finger as they went. I saw it disappear behind the drumlin, still on the wrong side of the double yellow line. But when I got that far, there was no wreck, so I guess the driver of that car went on to kill himself somewhere further down the road.
A mile or two further, up little hills, around little curves, I got tired of following everyone else at this sedate pace. I saw a thicket of Rose from Hell on the left side of the road, near that old but neat farmhouse with its silver tin roof and carefully painted red barns. I stopped to enjoy the flowers.
I shouldn't have pushed into the thicket of roses, because the thorns snagged me, of course. I fought myself free by jumping, but landed on top of another rosebush. Thrashed free, jumped again, higher and higher each time. The last time I jumped I landed about twelve feet off the ground, in what looked at first to be a palm tree but was really some kind of cactus. Its flowers were absolutely lovely, but the circles of thorns on its broad fronds-- or whatever you call the parts of a prickly-pear shaped cactus-- were a good two inches long, and red at the tips, as if already stained with blood.
I looked down at the man on the ground. He was wearing black jeans, a blue windbreaker with something written in white on its back, and a tan shirt. His hair was brown, a bit too long, and windblown. He smiled up at me. I'd never seen him before, but I'd known him all my life.
"That has to hurt."
"Damn right," I said. "Why is it that the higher you go, the more lovely the flowers, but the worse the thorns?"
He shrugged. "That's just how it is. I can help you down, you know."
"I'm stuck on these thorns. That's going to hurt like hell."
"I know. But you still have to come down sometime."
I sighed. "What I would like is to be unconscious when I come down. Fall asleep here and wake up there, flat on my back on the ground in the soft grass, with the thorns already out of my flesh."
"I can do that for you."
"Please do, then. And thank you."
He smiled up at me, and just like that, everything went black and I sank into deep sleep.
I woke up flat on my back. The sun was shining in through the window blinds and falling on my face. I looked at the clock radio just as it clicked on. "Chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon," the DJ said.
The lead car was an immaculate mid-60s Ford convertible, top down. It was metallic blue, one of those Colors Not Found in Nature that Ford was so fond of back then. It had four teenagers aboard. The girls were in back, having fun, waving their hands over their heads in the wind.
They were a little below the speed limit, but fast enough for such a twisting road. That wasn't enough for the black GTO behind me, though. It blasted past me and the line of cars at the worst possible place, where the road goes up and then down a steep hill, makes a hard turn left, and then an equally hard turn right around the base of a small, steep drumlin-- and just around that blind curve is a crossroads. Worst intersection in the whole county, as far as I know.
Anyway, the GTO blasted by, incredibly loud, the passenger giving us all the finger as they went. I saw it disappear behind the drumlin, still on the wrong side of the double yellow line. But when I got that far, there was no wreck, so I guess the driver of that car went on to kill himself somewhere further down the road.
A mile or two further, up little hills, around little curves, I got tired of following everyone else at this sedate pace. I saw a thicket of Rose from Hell on the left side of the road, near that old but neat farmhouse with its silver tin roof and carefully painted red barns. I stopped to enjoy the flowers.
I shouldn't have pushed into the thicket of roses, because the thorns snagged me, of course. I fought myself free by jumping, but landed on top of another rosebush. Thrashed free, jumped again, higher and higher each time. The last time I jumped I landed about twelve feet off the ground, in what looked at first to be a palm tree but was really some kind of cactus. Its flowers were absolutely lovely, but the circles of thorns on its broad fronds-- or whatever you call the parts of a prickly-pear shaped cactus-- were a good two inches long, and red at the tips, as if already stained with blood.
I looked down at the man on the ground. He was wearing black jeans, a blue windbreaker with something written in white on its back, and a tan shirt. His hair was brown, a bit too long, and windblown. He smiled up at me. I'd never seen him before, but I'd known him all my life.
"That has to hurt."
"Damn right," I said. "Why is it that the higher you go, the more lovely the flowers, but the worse the thorns?"
He shrugged. "That's just how it is. I can help you down, you know."
"I'm stuck on these thorns. That's going to hurt like hell."
"I know. But you still have to come down sometime."
I sighed. "What I would like is to be unconscious when I come down. Fall asleep here and wake up there, flat on my back on the ground in the soft grass, with the thorns already out of my flesh."
"I can do that for you."
"Please do, then. And thank you."
He smiled up at me, and just like that, everything went black and I sank into deep sleep.
I woke up flat on my back. The sun was shining in through the window blinds and falling on my face. I looked at the clock radio just as it clicked on. "Chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon," the DJ said.
