Boys Like Flowers Too

peonies and carnations

If Springtime crawls out of the
wild mouths of flowers, then
surely, Winter crawls out of mine.
Cecilia Llompart, The Wingless

I
      THE BOY CLAD in black stopped in his tracks when he saw it. Across from him, the two-story abode, previously for sale, boarded-up and a carbuncle of a building (remnants of some old movie rental store, he noted), was now an explosion of vibrant colour; an exclamation mark in copious amounts of green and frondescence in an otherwise monotonous grey and downtown, derelict area. Or, as it's decoratively adorned sign suggested in hand painted italics, simply Daley's Flowers. There were boldly budding flowers practically spilling from the entrance's glass door, despite it being shut to keep out the cold. Whoever assorted these flowers had put an awful lot of thought into their arrangements, with there being several charming bouquets of daffodils and pansies and various other flowers the boy could not have hoped to identify all wrapped up in cute polka dotted tissue paper and see-through plastic wrap. The display was swaddled in outer garments of trailing vines that twisted and curled around the doorframe, creating the illusion of wild thicket and spinney.

      A gust of wind galloped past him, upturning his collar with meddlesome force. The boy paused his music just as a new song was starting to play and waited for the brown Ford Cortina to pass him by.

      He barely startled at the chiming of a bell above his head upon entering Daley's Flowers. He was aware of the draft he had let in; it bristled past him as though more curious than he to see what lay beyond those glass french doors. Or, perhaps, it instead offered a nudge in the right direction because it in fact did know what lay beyond those glass french doors. Whatever it was, the draft was soon drowned out by the flower shop's encompassing humidity, which the boy ushered into his shivering bones like warm milk. It wasn't long before he felt truly overcome with how bright and colourful everything was, contrasting starkly with the city just outside; indeed everything the boy had known of up until now. He had never been to a flower shop before, even with him being twenty-two years of age, and this one was ridiculously beautiful; though in retrospect maybe that effect was enhanced by the aforementioned fact of which he had never seen another flower shop to make the comparison. (Though in binocular retrospect, he might refute that he is still yet to find a more spectacular florist.)

      If the exterior of Daley's Flowers had caught his attention, the inside was surely rioting for it. Streams of yellow and pink and blue and purple cascaded down walls of shelves with bouquets like the ones outside, vases and potted plants. Vines like before also hung from the low beams of wood strung across the ceiling and the boy had to duck his head slightly as he moved through the shop in order to evade them. Yet he wanted to touch them all as he passed; the dazzling tangerine blossoms, the blinding whites of oriental lilies and the scattered red of hibiscus with silky, dark burgundy petals. They emanated from the wall of wild greenery behind—and so for all he knew, the plants were trying to reach out and touch him back. One in particular, this tall verdant thing, with stems like jungle vines and leaves like Swiss cheese, brushed his arm with its leafy limbs. He put his phone in his back pocket to free his hands, his headphones around his neck (maybe the plant wanted to say something), and stroked it back as if it were just a house cat. But surely he couldn't buy his mother this. It would never fit. Perhaps his mother wouldn't mind a convenience-store-bought bouquet after all. Perhaps this wasn't even a good idea; perhaps he should just leave her alone. All the loud colours and looming stalks and shoots and blooms and Swiss cheeses were beginning to make his head swirl, and the boy began to make a cautious retreat, avoiding the dangling branches should they snag and ensnare him forever instead. But before he had made even his third retraced step, he was stopped by the gentle tune of a calling voice, "Coming!"