Call Out

Destroy it now, self remedy is saved for later

The room isn't crazy large but it feels free enough for a single person to roam.

   Not that it applies to Mum, she's permanently commissioned to those blue sheets. The bedding is nice too, it doesn't conjure any grimy imagery of wartime infirmary beddings. In fact this one can be tilted for comfort at an angle, has wheels so it can be moved to a different room and contains a plastic-esque railing reminiscent of a bunk bed, to prevent people from falling out — it's actually nice. Some fancy machinery I couldn't begin to understand nor dare touch was on the left, with the conspicuous oxygen pipe being the only thing functionally comprehendible. There's a small maple stand beside the bed in charge of the same glass vase every time I visit.

   I like the baluster shape a lot, its round body and narrow ceramic head look interesting. It's completely transparent too while at that. Maybe it's a personal bias with my interaction in flower arranging. Then you start realising how marinating thoughts of vase shapes, surfacing to the forefront of your thoughts just really means you'd lack any real friends and probably mean you need to make more human interactions. So I stopped.

   Aside from the acceptable living conditions, there wasn't much to complain about besides one tiny problem of having no chairs for the visitors so it usually ended up with me leaning against the bedside or me making do with the available bed space.

  "Hey mum, I'm back."

   The words were all but useless and I knew it better than anyone else and yet I still choose to express a greeting. A futile effort for what? I shrugged the thought off my head and invited myself to take a seat. I studied her features, she looked paler today, her skin wrinkling, not that I could tell with half of her profile obscured by the ventilation wired to her face. Her brown hair was starting to grow out from when it was still short, she had to cut it short then. The only thing I could still clearly define were her eyelids, for they were sealed shut before her warm green eyes. I sighed, ordering myself to arise again. I knew that she probably knew that I was there but any exertion of movement is too difficult. There wasn't much to do aside from talking and receiving no response or watching her unawake. If I get lucky, she might open her eyes or give a half-smile. I paced the floor back and forth, racking my brain for something I had overlooked.

   Oh, the flowers.

   I rotated the vase and plucked a cosmo from the bedside vase. The imagery of the silver cellophane paper struck my mind, cutting to the bin with the material disposed of and wrinkled.

   "I uh, got you cosmos this time around," I continued, rubbing the green stem between my fingertips, "Peonies aren't in season yet..."

   October, November, December.

   I imagined how she would respond, she would definitely be ecstatic, happy or delighted probably by the sight of any flowers. Who wouldn't like being gifted with flowers? I'd imagine her perking up by the colour of the petals or the lushness of the palette, photographing like some type of demanding second nature. Then after a few days or so, she'll press it, capturing the blossom between two thin panes of glass after the usual aid to compressment of hard-covered books. People are simple, they like things, they'll find a way to keep it and if they hate things...

   She hid it masterfully, only smiling when I was around. Flowers, she told me about flowers. Common blooms like roses, daisies or tulips to elusive flowers such as the ghost orchid renowned for their rarity and specific growth condition of the right level of humidity and a requirement of attaching itself to tree barks in the canopy of swampy forests. How did I remember that? I'm not sure myself. She knew a lot, and I knew that somewhere in another parallel universe, the eye-to-eye consensus made would have truly happened if it wasn't because of Dad or me, she could have pursued a successful career as a botanist or a biologist and lived a much better life. So the only thing I could do was listen, not because I could but because there were only two of us.