A shadow passes between two trees as you hear scurrying across the leaves. A wind blows through a curtain of swaying ivy. Flowers fall as a maiden kisses her lover's cheek, only to disappear in the light of dawn.
Have we really listened to the tree...
"Will Anita be alright?" Lily asked, her face pale with worry. Glittering with freckles, amidst shimmering waves, she was a glimmering star among the monstera leaves. It was a bright noonday with a cloud-cloaked sun, one of the rare moments of sunshine intermittent between storms of pelting rain.
In her hand held a tiny flowering pot, blue and purple with hand-painted sunflowers. Madam Tang chuckled and plopped a straw-hat on her granddaughter's head. It cast her face in shadow. Even so, the eyes continued to twinkle as she peered from behind the wide brim.
"We shall see, the sequel to last night's episode will continue tonight!"
"But I want to hear what happens now."
"Oh, there's a time and place for everything. Even stories. Look, the daffodils are blooming. Finally."
Grandmother always liked to leave a cliffhanger for the most important parts. Anita had become a captivating character for the past few nights (yes, the story was that long), and she wanted to know more about her life.
Lily looked at the red shawl of her grandmother. Embroidered with emerald cranes taking flight from golden valleys, they draped down to her ankles, rippling slightly with the swift movements of the master gardener. For some reason, she looked like the scheming Madame Ariza with her back turned. However, once she spun around, all malice faded, quelled by the bright gleam in her crystal eyes, slightly magnified by their thick glass windows.
Grandmother held out two small pots with tiny shoots, grown the previous week from Pothos cuttings. She looked like a forest god, her hands outstretched with a pot on each palm, silver hair held high in an elegant bun, some strands having fallen to outline the gentle curves of her smiling face.
"Where there's rain, there is sun! And life blossoms. Never underestimate the might of tiny greens."
Lily got hold of her grandmother's infectious laugh, and began to smile as well, cheeks turning rosy in the ochre glow. Gripping the pot's handle tightly, she could barely contain her overflowing enthusiasm.
"Can I water them, Grandma?"
"Yes, sweetheart – oh, just a bit, dear! Not too much – "
But it was too late, and the first pot overflowed with loving rain.
"Oh no!" Lily cried out; her eyes as large as the pot's rim. "What do I do?"
Oh dear, she was about to cry.
"No worries, child." Madam Tang soothed her shaking granddaughter and poured some of the extra water from the pot into its sibling's boat. If they would sink, they shall sink together.
"They probably won't die so easily with the strong sunlight, look, some of the water is draining from below, they're falling like your tears."
"I have more tears than that grandma..."
Madam Tang chuckled again and planted a kiss on her little sunflower's forehead. Among the flowers in her balcony, she was her favourite. She patted her head.
Lily wiped her tears and looked into the pot whose budding protagonist had almost drowned. The chartreuse hat lifted despite the weight from hanging droplets, revealing a lime gold face pointing towards the sun, basking in its marmalade light.
Down below, near the joints of its roots, were tiny hills of damp soil, decorated with even tinier pebbles. If you squinted, you could see dotty buds of juniper and forest green that trail the routes of spiral veins. There was life in the valleys. Hopefully no dwarf cone snails, however. They love leafy greens too much.
"Now it's up to the might of the shoot, if it could survive the conditions that it has found itself in."
"It's my fault..."
"No, child, some things happen for a reason. There are tests in this world. For necessary means, they help people realize their nature, and true purpose."
A spark glinted from the corner of Madam Tang's gold-rim spectacles, casting softly on Lily's oval cheek.
"Though, it is easier said than done."
Madam Tang smiled mysteriously as she added some more dry soil to the soaked pot, fingers stroking its tiny leaves. Her words echoed in Lily's heart like the calls of the Koel bird, clear yet evanescent, leaving questions unanswered in their vanishing tails. Down in the pot, thin lines merged into rivers, and the rivers into networks of spurting fountains that cascaded into something larger themselves...a dark sea of constellations...
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The artworks are also posted on my portfolio on instagram (watercrayola) Please do not repost without my permission! :'D Let's support creativity with integrity! hehehe
