Dances With Petals

Chapter 3: Haven.

He woke up with his eyes still closed. His face was very cold. He suddenly imagined that the girl had fallen asleep besides him and rolled to his side; his eyes were hard to open. The transcendental aura of a scarlet red haze on the floor focused itself slowly into something more defined – small petals dotted the forest ground. The girl he had seen was not there.

Het got up suddenly and realized painfully that he had obviously slept in a difficult position to the tune of an aching back and a headache. As he stood up, though, the scene around him – wow. The pain he felt was irresistibly replaced by a magical feeling of quaintness at the feet of what he was seeing.
It looked like something off a Disney film; the ground littered with small red and pink petals, the air was warm, the sky was pink and yellow and looked so distant from where he stood. The trees were bright pink, blooming with flowers. Their branches stretched across the sky behind him and around him and above him and showered him with their flowers, falling pleasantly, slowly around him.
He did not want to leave, but he had to. His mother would be worried senseless. Usually it did not matter what time Brooke got back, where he had gone, when he went, or how long he had been gone for, because experience had told him that his Mother was flexible. But on the day of his Father’s funeral, Brooke imagined things would be slightly different.

Brooke dizzily made his way through the eerie path of pink and red, as petals danced about his feet, weightless. The intoxicating scent of the forest made his head swim and his sense’s dull. He felt like he was dreaming, but dreaming something more real than anything he had experienced in reality.

The sky above him intensified and the forest grew lighter as he walked, he became aware that the branches above him were beginning to stay behind him now as he ventured from the forest towards his home. The exit was visible. It was a bright and sunny morning.
There were no cars about except for those parked in their driveways besides their homes. There were no people about, there was no noise but the faint breeze against Brooke’s face caressing his ears. It was very early in the morning.

His house was left unlocked; he made a careful and quiet entrance before tip-toeing upstairs and opening his mother’s bedroom door. She was asleep, her mobile phone on her pillow besides her.
He closed to door and tip-toed back downstairs, being careful to avoid the third step which creaked when he had originally walked up the stairs.
The house smelt different, of Roses and freshly baked bread.

Brooke decided that sleeping on the couch was his best option, so his Mother could see him when she woke up. But he did not feel tired. Not even slightly tired. The night earlier was all he could now think of.
He could think of it, but could not make sense of it. The girl was stupefying; as he remembered she struck him physically dull and rendered him speechless. The mesmerizing smell of her cherry-red hair and the way it hugged her petite figure; Her creamy white skin and the freckles about her nose; her wide and entrancing brown eyes.

‘Wow.’ He said. ‘Fucking wow,’ he said again louder to convince the room. There was nobody to hear him at this miserably ridiculous hour in the morning anyway.

He lifted his hands from behind his head, and got up from the couch and waded his way into the kitchen.
He deserved something to eat, having not eaten since yesterday morning. Eating never felt like a good prospect when in the Inn at the wake yesterday. Only an excuse for another to attempt some dull conversation with him.

He was buttering some bread when he remembered what she said to him. He took a spoon from the dish washer to observe his face; his eyes were always as blue and deep as an ocean, what an earth was she talking about? And why the hell does he need ‘helping’?
He threw the spoon into the sink and smirked to himself. She was definitely pretty, but she was equally weird, he thought.

He had never eaten a more boring and predictable Strawberry jam sandwich in his life.
He exited the kitchen and put Vanilla Sky in the DVD player, and sat down on the couch at a right-angle to the television with a bowl of cookie dough ice cream big enough to feed a small family.

∆

The spraying of air fresheners was what woke him up. His mother was tidying, playing power ballads. The room was glimmering clean.

‘So you’re awake then,’ his Mother remarked cheerfully. She was not angry or upset as Brooke had expected. Brooke never replied immediately. He sat up first to look at her. She was not looking at him back, too busy with tidying.

‘I’m sorry about not ringing you or anything; I just didn’t like it there all that much. At the wake, I mean.’
Brooke was never one for emotion, his brief monotone apology wasn’t even slightly convincing.

‘It’s okay my dear, I knew you would be okay. I actually expected you to pull a trick like this anyway. Would you like some breakfast? I’m busy right now but I’ll fry you something up as soon as I’m done!’
Upon the mentioning of food, Brooke’s stomach gave a churn and the cookie dough ice cream he had eaten earlier punched his gut.

‘No thanks, er, I’m actually alright,’

‘Oh that’s okay then,’ she said, apparently relieved, ‘You are returning to school tomorrow you know? Returning to normality and all of that? It’s what the school suggested, not to let any recent tragedies fester and such. It’s a good idea I think, you’ll like to see all of your friends again I think.’

The obvious tones of rehearsing were accentuated by the straining of her voice as she tried to reach the ceiling with her duster. His Mother was a caring person, Brooke thought to himself. He didn’t care about returning to school half as much she obviously expected.

‘Yeah that would be cool,’ he said, cut short by the shock on his Mother’s face.

‘Really? Well … yes of course, your uniform is ready anyway dear.’ She said, as she turned her head back again to the ceiling.

Brooke was suddenly overcome with the urge to tell his Mother about what happened yesterday night, but he written it off almost immediately as momentary stupidity or a lapse in his common sense. Instead, he smiled to himself as he imagined her enthusiastic and ceaseless responses in his head. It tired him even thinking of it.

Later that day, Brooke returned to the forest, in the hope that he would find the girl in that spot that he was in. He could neither find the girl or the spot, but still found great pleasure in walking through the deserted and mystical woodland until it was dark. That night, he slept in his own bed. It was a welcome change to the ground. Although it had less petals.