The Boy Who Made Flowers Sing

Prologue

Silence is a void that can be filled with anything - words, uneasy glances, shallow breaths, or death.

Elena hated silence. It was a boundless, unknown abyss. It was an unexpected guest in the middle of a crucial conversation. It was the shocking outcome of an obnoxious monitor beeping every five seconds beside her father. It was the doctor's stiff, forced smile after he uneasily announced the prognosis. It was her father's chest heaving for one last time, inhaling the last bit of oxygen left in the room. Elena remembered silence's smile as he viciously ripped her father's soul out.

Now, Elena made sure to fill the silence with anything she could - words, music, forced laughter, screams, crying.

Elena sat on the crooked shingles roof outside her window, her bare feet dangling above the apple tree in her backyard. She inhaled the smoke emitting from the joint between her shaky fingers and stared at the distorted highway lights past the fence.

It was a daily ritual to run through the entire memory in her head. She believed that if she ran through the chain of events enough times, maybe it wouldn't hurt as much. Maybe she'd go numb and become desensitized to the trauma.

Simultaneously and strangely, she didn't want to forget the good parts.  She dug through minute details such as the colour of her father's shirt. It was a soothing colour but why couldn't she remember what colour it was?  Or what he had said right before he began to have a seizure? It frustrated her that her memory was already fading despite having gone through it only two weeks ago.

The worst part was that she couldn't remember her father's last words before he slipped into a fatal coma.

She inhaled another bout of smoke before she began rehearsing the memory like a movie in her head.

Her father and Elena were hiking The Rocky Mountains, conquering steep climbs and traversing suspended bridges that hung high above shimmering lakes.

It was
cloudy but Elena's father was her sun, lighting her up from the inside. But that day, her sun was gradually dimming. She never fathomed her life could take a turn for the worse, especially when it seemed she was living her best days.

As they made their way to the top of a granite cliff, her father's breathing became shallow. He stopped climbing midway and placed his cold, clammy hand on his chest.

"Just out of breath," He panted as Elena looked back at him, concerned. "You go on."

Elena nodded and began to climb lugging her heavy backpack with her when her father sat down, now breathing heavily with a wheeze. He felt dizzy and laid down as his head began to spin and the evergreen trees seemed to be collapsing onto him. The wind began to howl and his body began to shiver uncontrollably.

Elena looked back at her father and her eyes bulged. His body was convulsing violently. She ran back, throwing her backpack off and not caring where it landed. Her heart pounded out of her chest just as her father's was. She raced back down the jagged rocks and knelt beside him.

"Dad!" She held up his limp, freezing hand despite the warm, summer air.

He was unresponsive. Elena violently shook his shoulders as his mouth foamed and Elena jerked back, beyond horrified.

"Dad!!" She shouted again, tears streaming down her face and disappearing into the rich soil beneath her.

The next couple of hours were a blur of sirens, reds and blues, an oxygen mask, and her mother's ghostly face.