Flower of Death

Chapter 1 // Change

Just as a flower does not choose it's colour, we are not responsible for what we become.What we must be responsible for, is what we do once we become that a bloomed flower.

For in life, there are but two constants; Death and change.

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The giant black canvas the the window framed, gleamed with both. The canvas of night had a single puncture of light. It's pale beams glittered through the room, flickering and bouncing off of the ornate forms of metalwork, and creating dancing patterns on the walls.

The room near suffocated itself on it's own vanity - no matter how many windows you opened, there was still the musty stench of the golden era of baroque. Out-dated and absurdly flamboyant.

The moon was the only tolerable thing about the starless night. Death and change loomed in the air.

The door sat in front of me like a child waiting impatiently for an answer, was I going to leave or stay?

An answer I was not attuned to. I did not want to leave the safe - yet overbearing - confides of my apartment, though staying had consequences I was not aware of.

This, unsurprisingly, was my custom. In a constant state of discontentment; the angel and demon that resided on either shoulder always at war with one another. I - eventually - gave in to the little golden halo-ed me over the left shoulder, and begrudgingly left for the bright lights and shivering streets of downtown Soho, apartments stacked atop trendy boutiques and patisseries, all closed at this hour. Almost in Chinatown.

The air of London was strung heavily between the tall buildings, like washing left on a line to dry, terror being the city's laundry. The night seemed too breezy, too slight, something was off. I could feel it in my soul as I headed off to work. My hands sunk into the pockets of my hoodie, I shuddered against the shades of cool that made up the night. And huffed clouds of warm air into the darkness, dotted with neon light and the lonely puncture of the moon.

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As I made my way down Broadwick street, the off feeling swelled into a physical pain that I could feel in my chest, a sense of doom and dread. Something was about to happen, something bad. I caught a bus down Regent street, towards my job as an art curator at the National Portrait Gallery, across from Trafalgar Square.

The closer I got to the square, the larger the ache of impending doom got. The square, filled with people, would have been unusual this late in the evening, if there hadn't been a night festival on. Little stalls surrounded Nelson's column and the lions. Small slivers of solar powered lanterns peaked through the openings, stocked full of god knows what. People bustled from stall to stall, bargaining with the sellers to save a small amount of money that wasn't worth the effort. Adults huddled alongside small children, waiting for a taxi out of the chaos. The shining headlights of cars polluted the night's sky, along with the rest of the city's twinkling lights and screaming streets. The orb of the moon dimmer than ever against the multicoloured backdrop the twenty-first century presented. Bright lights, bright city, bright chaos.

When I was young, the moon was always so big and bright, I could see the stars too, from our little home out in the countryside. But then I grew up and moved on out, no longer wanting to feel the suffocation of the emptiness of the country, without a sense of doom. I hadn't known that with more people, my sense of doom would worsen. An unfortunate and unuseful gift. 

I could feel the pain of loss, almost absorb it through translucent skin, seeing the souls and the soulless. Death extracted from me what most didn't believe they had anymore. An inner flower, or spark, or fire. Doctors called it Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, mother called a burden, and so did I. The square sapped every last drop of energy from within me and replaced it with dread, exhaustion, and the anticipation of death. The second constant in a two constant existence.

Doom rang through the city that night as I walked up the gallery steps, so much so that it knocked me over, and then I realised I had fallen too soon, the real doom started when I hit the step, and the bomb slammed through Trafalgar Square.

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The mystery begins! What is Lilith's doom sense? What happened in Trafalgar square? Why the hell is the start so darn cryptic? Why has it taken me 4 months to write this much?

All will be answered, maybe...

XOXO, Amelie.