Chroma

Purple Anemone

"Death, the forsaken."

The hot summer breeze gently ruffled through my hair. The smell of wild flowers and sun-dried grass engulfing in my nostrils. I was finally back. I still remembered my furious longing for adventure when I first left the village. I always thought I was meant for greater places, greater scenes. The endless fields and the wide forest surrounding it always felt like a cage. When the posters for enrollment had first been plastered on the wall of the general store I had literally jumped on the occasion. I wasn't the only one. Most of the young teenagers had seized the opportunity to flee from this deathly peaceful coffin.

A few months later, I remember feeling this painful longing for home. To be able to hear the murmur of the wind in the grass on sunny afternoons not a cloud in view, the sky almost achingly blue. Having absolutely nothing better to do than laying lazily on the ground. My dream of freedom had rapidly turned against itself. And I learned the harsh way that nothing ever forbade dreams to turn into nightmares.

The battlefield had left in me a permanent echo of agonizing grunts and screams. The chant of bullets and bombs still throbbing in my eardrums. I sometimes had my lungs burning and my eyes stinging as the acrid taste of smoke filled my mouth only to wake up the sensations still lingering long after. The nightmares hunted me every waking moment only to become my reality at night. The memories of the village I had so eagerly fled becoming my only anchor to sanity. I surprised myself missing all the details that had persuaded me to leave in the first place. The almost deafening silence of the nights, the prying questions of the old granny at the general shop, the constant warnings of my mother, her worst dishes, the exasperating father-son talks, the thunderstorm days where I was confined in the boredom of the house, I even missed the nagging of my teachers. The cage I had carelessly left becoming my shield against the violent reality leaping at me.

And now I had returned. Marching down the once familiar roads, I had this indescribable feeling of being a stranger in this place I used to call home. The desperate longing for home not truly satiated by my return as if missing an essential element for its completion. As a lost soul I mindlessly strolled along the roads of dirt, in my meander I found myself in a garden.

The garden was filled with flowers, in a mesmerizing painting of colors. As I wondered where I had ended I caught a glimpse of reddish hair glistening in the sun. Forgotten memories flashed through my mind.

A little girl was on the ground picking up the scattered flowers of a bouquet. Snickering sounds feeling the air.

"Hey witch! Why don't you try selling something else than your flowers, like your mother? My mom said she bewitched the men in the village with her sorcery."

The little girl hadn't answered. The little boy didn't take well her silence and grabbed her red hair.

"Your hair is the color of the devil it brings bad luck on the village it's what mom said."

She remained silent, grasping her flowers as if they could ward of the unjustified malice thrown at her. I had laughed with the others as she tripped while trying to get back on her feet, making the flowers in her small hands spread all over the ground.

A few years later when the few of us departing were waiting for our lift to the front, she had come. She gave each of us a flower. When came my turn she handed me a pinkish purple flower. As she handed it, she had said in a mysterious smile.

"Do you know the meaning of the Anemone flower?"

I didn't. She never told me the answer. But when I did it hunted me through the battlefield.

I had learned the answer a few days before arriving at the front when a soldier of my squadron had asked me to trough away this ill-omened flower. "It's the symbol of death; of the forsaken". The answer weighted on my shoulder and kept resurfacing in my moments of despair like a curse. And, as the nightmares pursued me, I taught it couldn't be truer.

Forsaken on the battlefield were death was more omnipresent than life, my comrades falling one after the other, I couldn't help but curse the red little devil. Deep down I knew it wasn't her fault. I knew but as the never ending, senseless slaughter persisted, I blamed her. The beautiful devil that had cursed me to this misery, this endless nightmare.

Yet, as she turned to me in the middle of that flower garden and her green eyes met mine I couldn't resent her. I was mesmerized, bewitched by this little devil. She than asked me with the same mysterious smile.

"So, did you find the meaning of the Anemone flower?"

There wasn't any sarcasm in her voice just an assurance I couldn't understand. She had cursed me. How could she look so innocent and pure? As I was about to answer in betrayal, she delicately placed her finger on my lips.

"I see. You didn't."

Without another word she turned over and entered her small house coming back with a book.

"Some things are better found by oneself." She said as she placed the book in my hands.

Intrigued I stared down at the worn down cover. I traced the golden inscription 'The meaning of flowers'. As I skimmed over the book one page came to my attention.

'Anemone:

The most known meaning of the anemone flower is of forsaken or forsaken love and death. However, the anemone flower has many meanings.

The red and pink flowers symbolizes death and forsaken love.

The white flowers embody sincerity and purity.

The purple flower carry the meaning of protection against evil.'

Suddenly the memories flashed again. As she handed me a purple flower.

"Do you know the meaning of the Anemone flower?"

I had stayed silent not knowing the answer. She had looked sadden and said.

"You will be needing it"

-End