The Violation of Flowers

Relationships have always been my Achilles' heel. My closest friends know this; I know this; I even know where it comes from. Stick me on a Freudian couch and I'd . . . fall asleep (they're just so cozy, and I'm not about to talk about my mom).

"Don't patronize me with flowers," she said. "I feel violated. Why did you send them? And close to Valentine's Day?!"

"I don't know," I shrugged. Part of this was true. Part of it was not. I did it for a variety of reasons. I did it because she wouldn't expect it. I did it because I think flowers are beautiful and so is she to me. I did it because I wanted to feel alive. I wasn't trying to rape her with flowers. Maybe at one time I could have told her this, but my mouth already knew what my brain did not, none of it could be said. It no longer mattered. The giving of flowers was meant to be a good thing. It wasn't. The word "violated" rang in my ears.

"Mark," she said, "you know it's over."
"I know," I agreed. "I've been trying to tell you that for a while now."

So why would I send Tracy flowers if I knew it was over and was trying to walk away? Good question. Maybe I wanted to get her attention before I left. Maybe I wanted to give her something that would last for a few days. Maybe I was doing it out of resignation, raising the white lily rather than the flag.

It had been growing for some time, something intangible but unsettlingly familiar. The death of the relationship was growing in me like a cancer. In the past I'd held on, letting it consume me until I lay stretched out, surprised that the dying gasp would be my last, realization finally flooding my eyes as the light faded, everyone else standing around my casket, but me surprised to find my eyes being sewn closed.

This time I wouldn't let death catch me napping. I'm not a victim. Slow sometimes, but not as stupid. When I caught death's scent, I loped off into the woods, following the animal instinct of isolation rather than the human need for healing. Hospitals have needles.

There was only one problem to my plan. She followed me into the forest. The phone calls, emails, the "one more chances," the visits with food prolonged the inevitable, the terminal nature of what we had. She knew it; I sensed it. Yet neither one of us wanted to let go, or at least didn't want to be the one to walk away first. "Go away," I said. "Leave me alone."

"I'll always remember you," she whispers. "And appreciate the time we had."
Don't. Stop it. Just let me go. This isn't helping, I thought. "Same here," I said.
"Friends?" she asks. No response. The awkward silence, and then she turns slowly, and heads back toward the house.

It's a clear night tonight, cool. Beneath me lies a bed of soft pine needles. Above the gently swaying tree boughs there's a field of stars, the moon nearly full, and beyond that, black space that stretches on beyond my imagination. I let out a long, mournful howl. Dying hurts. You don't ever really know what's beyond.