Leafy Green

Yellow Daisies

I had spent the previous night staring at the news on the blaring TV screen at the car crash report, my eyes swimming in tears as they create rivulets down my cheeks, dripping off my chin.

A few hours before, a sharp pain had made its way to my neck, feeling as though I had been stabbed. I had cried out in agony and stumbled towards the bathroom mirror as I watched the trail of yellow daisies yet to be open, wilt away and fall to the ground as shriveled petals, indicating that the soulmate had died.

I furiously searched on the internet and the local news about any recent deaths or fatal accidents only to come back empty handed. Curling myself up into a ball, the chatter of current events on the news became the background noise to my incoherent sobbing.

I didn't even get to meet them.

They left me, and I didn't even know what they looked like, how their laugh sounded, if they preferred sunshine over the rain or if they had a specific preference for ice-cream toppings. I didn't know what genre of music they listened to, what their voice sounded like first thing in the morning and the last thing in the night, how sweet or deafening their signing sounded, how beautiful they looked when they smiled...

I didn't even know their name.

Instead, they left me with nothing but wilted daisies and shooting pain.

A flash of light caused my attention to divert from my thoughts back to the television, where live broadcasting of a series of flipped cars was shown on-screen. I sit up on the couch and lean in intently, hating the wait for the information I'd been starved of.

Various sounds of incoherent rambling from an off-camera news reporter faintly fades away, and I only hear keywords.

Accident, injured, passengers, crash, and death.

My hand covers my slightly agape mouth as images of the passengers who had died by the car flipping and gaining full impact from the crash.

One image shows a young child, short blonde hair with caramel highlights and rosy cheeks, small red flower buds trailing down the side of the face.

The other image shows a woman no older than 20, presumably the driver of the vehicle; matching blonde hair, slightly longer and curlier than the child's', deep brown eyes, pale skin and a trail of unopened yellow daisies that run from underneath one eye, over the bridge of her nose, and stop at the corner of her other undereye.

My lip trembles as I'm shocked with the realisation that the latter image was my soulmate. Her flower buds unopen and reflecting mine, although she never had to see them wilt and die right before her eyes.

And she never will.