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Home was always the most inappropriate place to start one’s life. There was only history there, and history could not change anything. So on the day the second last of the Conners died, Marion Conner tended a flower garden on the front yard of the family’s ancestral home.
This was the flowerbed where all her secrets grew names.
I don’t know, mother. It’s Joanna. She did it! I tried to turn him back, but his hands kept on sinking back to his body… I know why my sister did it, mother. She did it because it amused her.
There were dahlias, chrysanthemums, begonias, irises, and daisies planted in rows around a patch of ornamentals and smelly herbs. Perennials thrived in clusters behind the white fence.
Tell me, Bill, is it Anna? Don’t lie. I can see it in your eyes. Nobody can deceive a Conner woman.
There were faces amongst the petals she did not want to see. One of them was Bill’s face. The first husband. He was pleading, his voice hoarse.
Marion recognized Martha Deidre’s face imprinted on one of the hydrangeas. Martha, a thin-lipped and voluptuous woman who had gossiped about Marion’s family in the office, was shrieking in a tinny voice. The words were unintelligible. She had spread rumors long enough to be allowed to earn her voice back.
You see now, Marion? A Conner could only forgive but not undo. Once the words were out, you could never take them back. A spell was unbreakable, so much like the darkest magic of all. What is evil is something you cannot control.
Not this.
The garden buzzed like an empty tomb. Marion watched three bees gather. The very nature of bees was to seek and follow the trail of scents.
The drone of Bill’s voice was lost in the buzzing of insects, the rattling of the wind. His other woman, Anna, was the face on the sole sunflower Marion had planted. Marion wanted the sunflower seeds to hurt Anna’s eyes, to keep them closed most days so she would not have to meet the other woman’s gaze.
Marion knew that they had suffered long enough for their sins, yet it was impossible for her to undo their fates.
I promise not to hurt. Promise, promise, promise… I’ll never marry, mother. I’ll be alone for the rest of my life. I don’t want to hurt people anymore.
Marion tried to drown the screaming flowers with water from a sprinkler.
Kristine Ong Muslim is the author of the full-length poetry collection, A Roomful of Machines (Searle Publishing, 2010) and the e-chapbook, Our Mr. Flip (Scars Publications, August 2010). Her poems and stories have appeared in over four hundred publications worldwide including Boston Review, Contrary Magazine, Hobart, Narrative Magazine, The Pedestal Magazine, and Southword. She has been nominated five times for the Pushcart Prize and four times for the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Rhysling Award.
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19 Responses to “FLOWERS, SECRETS • by Kristine Ong Muslim”
Comments
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January 19th, 2011 at 1:14 am
Impressive credentials.
I wish I could make heads or tails of this story.
January 19th, 2011 at 2:01 am
Hmmm… I found the head and the tail, but where is the point?
January 19th, 2011 at 2:01 am
Daaaamn why is this getting voted down so much! i thought this was a really good story, a really subtle plot underneath huge metaphors, i thought the prose was literally colourful yet exctremely dark.
very good i say
January 19th, 2011 at 2:19 am
I’m with you on this one, MS.
A fabulous read, continuing the run from yesterday.
January 19th, 2011 at 2:35 am
I was initially intrigued with flowers that had personalities but the story seemed cluttered and the sentences were difficult to read
January 19th, 2011 at 3:01 am
This one grew on me. (Sorry!)
At first I found the sentence construction difficult, a tad clunky, but by the third reading the beauty of the piece was emerging. An unusual idea that was given a very proficient treatment. Well done.
January 19th, 2011 at 6:02 am
It’s pretty, but I’m honestly lost.
Sounds like the MC is personifying the flowers with either her victims, or that of her husbands, but I’m not really sure.
January 19th, 2011 at 6:04 am
It’s intriguing. I just don’t understand the lead. I would have started it with “On the day the second last of the Conners died …” The first two sentences about home and starting one’s life I just can’t follow, though there is probably some meaning there that I’m missing.
January 19th, 2011 at 6:56 am
Great tale Kristine, as usual. Lovely imagery, and a beautifully wicked plot (pun intended)!
January 19th, 2011 at 7:13 am
An eerie, twisted little tale – just my cup of tea!
January 19th, 2011 at 8:01 am
I love it, I hate it, I understand it, I don’t. I’m a bit confused, but I don’t want to be. It reads like poetry, feels like reality, and seems to touch me in a way I can’t get my mind around. Maybe its that good, maybe its that bad. I don’t know. Two stars going on five. Toughest story to critique in a long time.
January 19th, 2011 at 8:25 am
I’m just confused. Is it metaphor, or is she a witch?
January 19th, 2011 at 8:53 am
Whoa! At first I thought it was her husband’s girlfriend she was encasing in a flower but it was her son’s! I really loved that twist! This is a five star story for me.
Paul Frisson- Yes, she’s using magic.
January 19th, 2011 at 10:29 am
Read it 3 times.
Read comments twice.
1,2,7,8, and especially 11 and 12
I agree with…….
two stars…………impressive credentials tho!
January 19th, 2011 at 11:00 am
I second everything #11 (Seattle Jim) said. A different writter would have worded it differently- better? Maybe. Who am I to judge. Good effort Kristine. Gave it an extra star because the underlying idea really appealed to me.
January 19th, 2011 at 1:16 pm
Well, I definitely didn’t understand all of it. But I gave it extra stars because the concept is so totally creative.
January 20th, 2011 at 3:49 am
Intriguing and frustrating. Great premise re the flowers (are the faces all of dead people?). But it’s like a gorgeous jig saw puzzle with a few key pieces missing.
January 20th, 2011 at 6:35 am
‘…buzzed like an empty tomb.” I’ve never been in an empty tomb but I can’t imagine it would buzz. I guess if it was full of mosquitoes. Was the sentence supposed to be a clue? Obviously, I’m clueless.
My opinion is the story tried too hard to be mysterious. Left me unsatisfied.
January 23rd, 2011 at 9:14 pm
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