Page 57 - Contrast2016

CONTRAST - 55

A BLESSING

BY KAILEY RHONE

In the midst of a wood there was a clearing wherein a young woman and her
two eldest sisters lived with their parents. What may be considered an epicenter
of natural growth was, in fact, a dearth of such. The young woman, tortured by
the ill luck of bad soil, cursed her lack of a green thumb and reluctantly accept-
ed there was not a thing she could do. With her skirts laid on the dirt around her
like her own chicken wire fence, the young woman wept. Trapped within her own
limitations, she was certain she too would never blossom. In a moment of erratic
frustration, the young woman huffed and swore she would do anything if it meant
that the barren earth on which her house sat burst into color; lively with tulips and
marigolds alike. And so it was that the elderly man with tufts of grey atop his head,
and overalls of worn denim, appeared like an apparition.

"They call me a blessing," the young woman gasped in surprise as the man
stepped closer. "For upon my arrival gardeners such as yourself reap what they
sow."

The young woman trembled with mingled consternation towards the stranger
and anger at her recent failure. Her voice slipped over her lips, shaky as her hands,
as she asked the old man what she could do to grow her garden.

"What you must know of flowers is that they are lovely things. Therefore, such
things of beauty must grow from love."

The young woman sniffled in response, overtaken by her emotion as she
managed to ask the man why her passion to bring life into her garden was not
enough to do just that. He laughed, and the young woman sensed that the old man
thought her naive, an evaluation she did not find entirely inaccurate.

"My dear, who do you love most in this world?" The young woman resigned her
slow running tears and gathered herself. As a person of few acquaintances beyond
her own household, she decided who she loved most in the world was her moth-
er, her father, and her two eldest sisters. Thus, she announced this fact to the
old man as his cheeks reddened with delight and his eyes twinkled with perverted
glee. He clicked his tongue and clapped his hands together, as if a plan had been
hatched.

"If you would like to grow your garden, first you must give me something. An
equal exchange, you see." The young woman nodded in eagerness and pushed
aside the cold trickle of uncertainty at the quality of this man's character.

"If you get your flowers I ask that I, in return, receive friendship."
The young woman's forehead wrinkled with confusion. A friendship between a
woman no more than ten and eight and a man old enough to be her grandfather?
Nevertheless, she agreed, certain that a bond could be formed with time, and at
his age a short time of friendship it could very well be.
"This is what you must do: for each of your loved ones you must determine
what makes them lovely. And once you do, you must retrieve an object that
represents the trait you find admirable. That is the seed, if you will, and your loved
ones the flower. Once you have found your bits and bobs, you are to bury them
beneath the soil, and by morning you will find that your garden has become wild
with growth."

The young woman suddenly grew weary, unsure her agreement was a clever