orchidaceae

The room was still other than the occasional flutter of the floor length beige curtains, the occasional rustling of sheets, the occasional ghostly creaking coming from beneath the floorboards, the constant whisper of her breath tickling the invisibly blonde arm hairs.

Suddenly, life, like tiny fireflies, streamed from her roots to the tips of each solitary hair and burst into orchids crowning her deathly still visage. The flowers flourished, nuzzling into the stark white sheets, wrapping around her stark white ankles, matching her stark white face. The softest tickle of a petal on her inner wrist couldn’t wake her to see this beautiful clustered bed of proliferation. The growth began to engulf the room, spreading like veins on the scratched, groaning, wooden floor and up the whisper pink walls. The orchids, like fingers, wriggled their way into the drawers imploded with clothes, into the corners that were never dusted, around the padlocked tin box containing all the secrets of her world, around and into the vase of wilting red daises – no match for an orchid.

And yet she did not stir, frozen like a statue holding her breath.
If she had awaken she may not have even moved, just lay there in veneration. But she did not wake.

The white petals stroked her and lulled her: a beguiling ploy in the quiet story of her demise. Soon the army grew and its soldiers were so numerous they began to grapple for air, entangling themselves, sweeping her lipstick, perfume, paddle brush and mirror off her oak wood desk, stems wrapping around the picture frames so tightly, shattering them. The white children grew so hungry for a breath or two that they seemed to have forgotten about their poor slumbering mother who had bestowed life upon them but could not manage to keep a portion of the gift for herself.

And so she wilted among her stark white sheets. Only the tinted shade of suffocating, delicate blue in her skin peeked through the silhouettes of her children.