It’s not every day that parents, let alone grandparents, visit their children’s work place.
It’s a big green field, which stretches to ridiculous amount of land, capturing something which is too old for its own good. A museum would be something easier to describe rather than someone’s own property, but when it comes to riches, the wealthy continue to surprise.
There’s no smoking on the job, so both grandson and grandmother hold. She’s not even sure she can be here, but she is. Early and at nine in the morning on the dot. Right after everyone scattered for work and the sprinklers’ night duties are long gone.
Grandmother takes a few more steps, as grandson sits down, never breaking his routine lighting one brief cigarette, before the afternoon completely unravels and takes over the morning in a few hours. Takes off his hat and places it besides him. A straw hat he had bought in the market place last weekend, wishing he weren’t alone on a Saturday. He falls backwards onto the grass, not caring about the dampness which he will carry later on.
That’s exactly when he hears faint jingling. The gardener instantly sits up to the sight of his grandmother dancing. Her eyes closed and no music to be heard other than the sound of her bracelet and watch. There’s no birds at this hour either, there’s just his grandmother and whatever is going on in her mind with her wrinkles full of pearls, sweat forming after a good while of dancing. He watches her in the purple dress, the old shoes which carefully don’t leave marks on the grass and her neat hair still in a bun.
The gardener doesn’t bother her at all, forgetting about the cigarette, until the time comes to stub it out against the heel of his shoe. He doesn’t bother her until he thinks it’s time for her to leave.
–
When the night comes, the roses are all cut and made into separate bouquets for the daughters of the man of the house. The gardener couldn’t help but wonder, despite his age how did it feel to actually spread his wings and see other job postings. He had been here for a damn while, but when the soul aches, it sings – his grandmother would say, as he would come home. She seemed to enjoy the estate as well or maybe she felt certain strings being pulled apart to reveal his once stone cold heart. All are born with stones, until someone immerses the baby heart in blood, some have it last, some have it tainted, but all need to have the heart flowing with fresh love every year, to bloom at spring.
He walks carefully into the house, which resembles a bigger glasshouse and closes his eyes, as all the daughters run ludicrously in front of him, nearly knocking him off his feet.
Why.
He keeps on going through the massive corridor, which is lit by candles… Something the owners were proud of, an eerie yet beautiful decoration, just a light summer and spring touch, while winter came hard with snow and he would only cut pines to bring to the house.
Remembering faces was hard, they weren´t like flowers with as many twists and turns and you could never have the same petals on ones face, no matter how much would be crushed during the act of love if he were to cover the sheets in roses. He even asked for thorns, saying life would find a way.
Sometimes he’d have to remove these thorns from the man’s feet. But not look up, knowing that soon enough wrinkles would grace both their faces from the different harsh work they did.
The man loved someone else, who had died in his youth, sparing not even a speck of love for his wife, no matter how much love was made, once the gardener was told. He said he was just a distant echo from the past who was lost, that he had been killed with her, this said love, long ago and now he didn’t know himself anymore.
But the gardener loved this cocoon. Because maybe once, blood would rush out of his wounds, when he would get prickled by roses and he would be held high, maybe holding his grandmother’s pearls in hands, as he would once play with them when he was growing up, when she was still alive.
But just like the sky misses falling stars to be caught in nets, so do the rockets, fireworks and lust instead of love.
–
He would be buried in pearls, which had been left.
The ones he danced with, the ones which jingled generation to generation.
Because love is such a fleeting moment, that with the blink of an eye it passes and reaches the peak of nightfall, when the table is no longer served and the master of the house drinks alone, recalling the gardener who had danced since he was a child in his wife´s dresses, pearls, performed in cabarets and smiled at men who would be interested… Men who weren´t him, just for a distraction.
He died like his grandmother
Loved, yet forgotten. He thought as he tucked a pearl clip into his sleeve to gift to the wife for an anniversary.
–
I had honestly thought that my fiction wasn’t being read and I kind of get caught up in that, so I always appreciate kind comments and when people reach out to me! Thank you so so so much, dear reader!
I wrote this in two sittings, really.
Thank you!
grasp the sanity 