It'll still bloom

There’s a mirror across the room from me, and I want to shatter it. I think I would, if I wasn’t too drunk to stand up from the ratty old couch I’d collapsed upon somewhere between deciding I’ve had enough to drink and then deciding -- well, maybe just one more --

“You’re a dumb motherfucker and I hate you,” I spit at the face in the mirror. He doesn’t say anything back, just copies my glare and sways slightly, despite being seated. It’s true though, I do hate him. Me. whatever. The idiot who decided that, yeah, I can handle downing the rest of whatever alcohol I’ve got left in my sorry excuse for an apartment alone on a random winter’s night.

Well. The calendar says spring’s starting tomorrow, but there’s snow on the ground and it’s a cold enough night for me to wish I was sober so I could go and get a blanket from my bedroom. This apartment doesn’t have good heating, and if I were a smarter man I’d have asked the landlord to do something about that back in October when I started noticing myself waking up shivering.

I am not a smart man. That much is evident.

Half a bottle of whiskey, two empty cups that once were filled with a fruit punch-vodka mix, three unopened beer bottles, and one quarter-empty beer can sit strewn across the table in front of where I sit, swaying and half-collapsed on my couch. Incidentally, this is also the only table I own. There were books stacked on it earlier, but they’re now in a heap on the floor. Somewhere between the five-feet journey from my kitchen to the couch I’d knocked into the table and sent books flying. In my drunken haze I’d decided to just leave them there, and despite my beginning to sober up, the world still feels too tilted for me to get up and fix them. Anyway, the table’s currently occupied.

Occupied by better things, my mind supplies. I shake my head vehemently, as if to clear that thought from my head. I only succeed in making myself more dizzy. I squeeze my eyes shut until the word stops spinning quite as fast. When I open them, I’m staring back at the mirror across from me.

“Why are you even still here?” my reflection says, my mouth moving in tandem. “It’s not like there’s much waiting for you.”

One glance around my apartment, my life even, proves that.

“Look at you,” he continues on, glaring at me. “No friends, no family, a half-finished college degree, a shitty job, and no goals. What’s the point?”

I don’t know how to respond. My reflection and I glare at each other, neither daring to be the first to look away. Waiting for something to happen, but nothing does.

“Exactly,” I mutter, tilting my head up towards my cracked ceiling, pulling my gaze away from the mirror. “Might as well drink yourself to death.”

I’ve just decided on doing exactly that when there’s a knock at the door.

“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter to myself, attempting to pull myself to a standing position and failing three times before I finally raise myself up on unsteady feet.

There’s another knock.

“Yeah, I’m coming! Just -- give me a second,” I say, almost a shout. I glance at myself in the mirror and decide -- well, I’m presentable enough -- before stumbling my way over to the entrance to my apartment. I have no idea who could be bothering me this late, except maybe my landlord or a neighbor. Either way, they’ll be unsurprised to see me up this late, drunk.

I swing my door open, my mouth opened and a complaint about bothering me at this time of night on the tip of my tongue -- and freeze at the bizarre sight that greets me in the hallway.

The woman in front of me has a cloud of pink hair with cotton-candy blue streaks running through it, and her cheeks sparkle with green glitter that stands out against dark skin. She wears a pair of yellow overalls and a blue t-shirt, and she floats a good two inches off the ground. The spitting image of my childhood imaginary friend -- just, an adult version.

“I-- you-- you-- Daisy?” I manage to stutter out, almost sure I’m hallucinating. That’s it -- I’ve drank too much and now I’m losing it, seeing things that aren’t real. I should just shut the door now.

But she grins wide and launches herself into my arms, and I haven’t been hugged in so long.

“Aaron!” she exclaims, and her voice is full of sweetness and music. “You remember me!” She pulls away to look at me, but her hand remains on my shoulder. “Oh, it’s been too long.”

I open my mouth, about to say something, anything — maybe are you real or am I losing it — but before I can, the door across the way swings open and my neighbor is glaring at me, arms crossed over his chest.

“If you two wouldn’t mind keeping it down,” he grouses. “Or maybe taking it somewhere else. Not in the hallway.”

You two. You two, he’d said. She’s real. I gape dumbly, my gaze swinging back and forth between her and him. He’s looking at me expectantly. I close my mouth and muster a nod. He mutters something about drunkards before slamming his door shut. Daisy turns to me with a smile.

“Can we get ice cream?”

—-

Daisy’s favorite ice cream flavor combination is still mint chip and strawberry, and she still insists it’s the best thing ever. I almost believe her, because the gaze she lands on that strawberry-mint-chip sundae is that of a woman in love.

I can’t stop staring at her, unable to form words. She smiles brightly at me and begins shoveling ice cream in her mouth at an alarming pace, and I can’t stop staring at her. I mean — she’s everything I remember, as much as anyone can remember anything from toddlerhood. Cotton-candy-swirl hair, the brightest grin you’ve ever seen, bubbly and sunny in every way. But she was never real like this. She was never real.

I blink and her ice cream’s gone, and she’s giving me a slightly apologetic smile.

“I can see something on the tip of your tongue,” she says with that same guilty-looking smile. “What’s going on in your head?”

“I mean— just— how?” Very eloquent. It’s clear I’m not entirely sober yet. I take a deep breath and try again. “How are you real?”

She shrugs. “I made a wish.”

“A wish?”

“Yeah,” she crumples up her napkins and tosses them toward the trash can. She misses. “I wished to be real. I wanted to live.”

“You wanted to live?” I repeat dumbly. She nods.

“Yeah, I wanna live.”

“Why?” The question is out of my mouth before I can stop it. She doesn’t seem offended, though, and takes in a deep breath, gazing around at the buildings that we can see around us from the outside of the ice cream parlor. And — maybe this is just my overactive imagination, but — I swear I can see her eyes shine with glitter and stars.

“Why wouldn’t you?”

—-

I let her have the bed in my apartment that night, and I take the couch across from the mirror. After what feels like hours of tossing and turning, I get up and take the mirror off the wall, putting it in a closet. Even without it, though, I can feel my own eyes staring at me from some unseen reflection.

I don’t get much sleep that night.

When I wake up to light streaming through the one tiny window in my living room, I can smell something cooking.

I push myself to my feet and stare blankly at the table in front of me — the one still covered in bottles and cans and surrounded by books on the floor — before grabbing as many empty drinks as I can carry and making my way towards the smell of food.

Daisy’s in the kitchen, cooking. I have no idea where she’s managed to find any of the ingredients, but somehow a stack of rainbow-sprinkle pancakes sit next to her on the counter.

She turns, and, seeing me, grins one of her sunny grins. It’s so bright that I have to turn away for a moment, taking my time throwing out the empty bottles before turning back. She’s still looking at me, almost expectantly. I raise an eyebrow at her.

She laughs. “Come try these pancakes, stupid.”

I roll my eyes at her, but move over to the counter and pick up a pancake — with my bare hands because I can’t be bothered with utensils — and take a bite.

Heavenly. It’s light and fluffy, and the sprinkles are sweet. Where she learned to cook like this, I don’t know, but these are the most delicious pancakes I’ve ever had.

“They’re disgusting,” I say, shoveling the rest of the pancake into my mouth before reaching for more.

She laughs again, and this time throws her head back and laughs towards the heavens — or, rather, the cracked ceiling.

“I’m sure they’re terrible,” she says as she watches me eat two more. She turns off the stove and puts her dishes in the sink, before leaning against the counter and pulling a piece of paper with a list written on it in — is that crayon? Do I even own crayons?

“I have some things I want to do, now that I’m a person,” she says brightly. “Things that people do.”

“Alright,” I say, straightening up from where I’ve hunched over the plate of pancakes like a wild animal. “Hit me.”

“You don’t mean literally hit you, right?” She says, with a raised eyebrow and a slightly confused smile.

“No! No, don’t actually hit me,” I frown. “Tell me what’s on the list — the things you want to do. People things.”

“Alright,” she reads out the list, and it goes something like this:

go to a museum

Pet a dog

Have a sleepover

Pick a flower

Go to the beach

“— and I guess technically I’ve already had a sleepover, since I stayed here last night with you,” she says, crossing that one off the list with a purple crayon from her pocket.

“Those are — really specific,” I say, slightly bewildered. “And not that difficult. We can do all those things today.”

“Oh, perfect!” She smiles. “That means I can make another list tomorrow.”

—-

I suggest going to the beach first, since it’s always open and not a far train ride away, but she shakes her head vehemently at that idea, claiming that “the best time to go to the beach is at sunset -- or so I’ve heard,” so we decide to go to a museum first.

The nearest museum to my apartment is a small natural history museum that has ever-changing exhibits. I give Daisy a coat of mine so she won’t freeze in the frigid first-day-of-spring air, and she playfully complains about how drab the color is. Still, she practically dances along the entire three blocks to the museum, only pausing to say hello to the squirrels and pigeons we come across. I’m practically running to keep up with her, and by the time we reach the museum I have to stop and catch my breath.

“Oh my god, they have a bug exhibit!” she practically squeals. “Aaron -- they have a bug exhibit!”

“They do?” I straighten up, shallow breath forgotten. She’s right -- there’s a big sign outside of the door advertising the showing of their extensive insect collection.

“Well, are you gonna just stand there, or are we gonna go see some bugs?” She grabs my hand and drags me into the building. I barely pay attention as we purchase two tickets, eyes trained on the curtain dividing the insect section from the rest of the museum. As soon as the tickets are purchased, I rush through that curtain, practically leaving Daisy in the dust as she struggles to keep up with me.

From the looks of it, it’s a full arthropod collection -- not only insects, but some arachnids and crustaceans as well, all laid out in clear-top wooden boxes and neatly labelled. At the other end of the room I can also see some containers with what look like live specimens in them.

I can feel the excitement bubbling up within me, threatening to spill out. I’ve loved insects ever since I was a little kid, and learning about them is one of the few things I still enjoy.

I jump slightly when Daisy lands a hand on my shoulder. She’s wearing her usual sunshine grin, and her eyes are on me.

“I’m afraid I don’t remember much about bugs,” she says, her smile dimming a little. “Would you tell me about what they have here?”

I can’t tell if she’s being serious or only bluffing to get me to talk. Either way, it works. The excitement bubbles over, and I drag her to the crustacean section.

Over the next hour, we slowly make our way across the sections of glass-top boxes and I tell her every fact I know about the species there. Most of them are local species, but a few are clearly from abroad -- and those are the ones that excite me the most. I find myself gesticulating wildly at her as I explain facts about my favorite beetles and spiders, but I can’t find it in myself to care too much about how foolish I must look.

It’s when we get to the live specimens that I practically explode with excitement, especially when I see the praying mantises they have.

“These are orchid mantises -- you can tell by their pink and white coloring. And this sign says they’re in their fifth instar,” I say, tapping a sign next to the containers, “which means they’ve molted five times already and are almost adults -- just a few more instars to go. Aren’t they so beautiful?”

Daisy nods at me, her eyes full of stars like they were last night. She hasn’t been talking much this entire time, but her smile hasn’t dulled. If anything, it’s just gotten brighter.

“Tell me more about mantises,” she says. “I know you know a ton, you nerd.”

I crack a grin for what feels like the first time in forever. “Well, mantises actually have wings -- believe it or not -- and when they feel threatened they show their wings and hold their front legs aloft to make themselves look bigger. Also, did you know they have five eyes?”

She squints at the mantises. “I only see two.”

“The two that you see are their two compound eyes -- they’re the bigger eyes that give them their good vision. But they also have three eyes on top of their heads, in between their compound eyes. Those eyes help them better see light and dark. This is useful for them, since they hunt during the day and often mate at night.”

“That’s really cool,” she says, leaning so close to the container that her nose is nearly touching the glass. “I think I can see their other eyes!”

I nod vigorously. “They’re very cool. Mantises are amazing.”

She turns to me then, eyes still full of stars. “It’s good to see you smile.”

---

I talk excitedly about insects all the way to the park, where we’re going to pick flowers and hopefully see some dogs. We get lucky with the flowers right away -- there’s a patch of flower buds poking out of the grass right near the gate.

“I shouldn’t pick them. But I really want to,” Daisy says. We’re standing above the flowers -- have been for the past twenty minutes, debating whether or not to take them.

“I still don’t see why you don’t just take them,” I say with a shake of my head.

“Because they’ll die!” She says, and her voice is full of emotion. “They’ll have died before they even bloom.”

I look at her and am beyond surprised to see tears streaming down her face. I’ve never seen her cry.

“Daisy, c’mon, it’s okay,” I say, handing her my scarf to wipe her tears with. “You can just pick one, and the rest will still bloom.”

She sniffs, scrubbing at her face with my scarf. “Just because the others’ll bloom doesn’t mean that the one I picked deserved to die. I want them all to bloom.”

I fall silent for a moment, trying to figure out how to remedy this situation.

“How about this,” I say after a moment. “We’ll get a pot and dig up one of them to put in it. That way it’ll still bloom, and you can still keep it in the apartment. Sound good?”

She brightens immediately. “I want that one,” she says, pointing to one of the smallest of the bunch. “I’ll name it Aaron.”

I snicker. “You’ll name the smallest one after me?”

She nods vigorously. “Trust me -- if I give it lots of love, it won’t be the smallest for long. It’ll bloom the prettiest.”

“All right,” I roll my eyes. “Let’s get a pot for Aaron The Flower.”

We buy a pot from the nearest plant shop and pot the flower. Daisy insists we bring it back to the apartment and give it some water and sunlight before continuing at the park, so we do. We put the flower on the windowsill in the apartment where it’ll get plenty of light, and Daisy gives it what she assures me is “just the right amount” of water.

Unfortunately, we do not get lucky with the dogs. Despite it being midday, Daisy and I sit on a park bench for hours and don’t see a single dog. We sit and eat lunch there, drink hot chocolate, and wait and wait and wait, but no luck. By the end of it, I’m apologizing profusely to Daisy for her having to sit in the cold for hours and not getting to pet a single dog, but she won’t hear it.

“Something to start my list with tomorrow,” she says. “Let’s go to the beach.”

---

The beach is windy and frigid, and I have to remind Daisy to keep her coat zipped up or else she’ll get sick from the cold winds. It’s only 6 PM, but the sun has already begun to set and the sky is painted with shades of orange and pink.

Daisy runs across the sand and collects an armful of shells, dancing in the fading light until her cheeks and nose are flushed. At some point she plops down on the sand and starts sorting through her shells, deciding which ones to keep and which to leave at the beach “for others to find.”

I sit next to her and can’t keep my eyes off of the sky as she sorts quietly next to me. I can’t believe that in my years of living here, I’d never come to the beach and watched the sunset. I suppose I’d always been too busy -- busy with my writing, busy with school, busy drinking myself into a stupor every night.

“So,” I say, breaking the silence. “How has living been so far?”

She tilts her head back towards the heavens, and for once, she’s not smiling. But her eyes are still full of stars.

“I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” she says, her voice barely a whisper louder than the breeze. Then she tilts her head towards me. “Would you?”

“Sometimes I think I would,” I say without thinking. Then my eyes wander across the sky, the shore, then back to her. “But I’ve stuck with it so far, and that’s gotta mean something, right?”

Her smile returns. “I think it means everything.”

I smile too. “Come on, Daisy. Let’s go home. The beach’ll still be here tomorrow.”

She smiles, her gaze towards the waves rolling in. “You’re right, it will be.”

---

Aaron -- the flower -- slowly blooms, and I suppose so do I.

Daisy puts the mirror back up and I don’t feel my reflection staring at me every time I walk past it.

I publish more stories and essays. I go back to the museum and see the insects. The mantises grow to adulthood. Daisy gets to pet a dog.

The beach is still there tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. And I think that means everything.