Hollow Souls (the short story anthology)

Hometown

The rays of the sun shone down on the little suburban town, lighting up the roads and houses. The roads clean and smoother than those of a city. The houses enclosing the people, going along their own lives in their own little worlds. The houses stood small with short gardens out front with dinky mail boxes. Each individually designed to fit the preference of the person who lived there. One with rose design, which like a real rose was entangling around it; and another with a galaxy blue hue which looked like the spiraling milky way ever expanding in deep space, out of our reach.

Flowers grew in the garden. They tended to be bright red roses that grew along the sides of the fences spreading their chaotically beautiful colours across the white painted panels. A line of white tulips presented themselves outside the doors. Usually the amount correlating to the number of people that lived in the house. The grass in the neighbourhood was a glistening emerald, lighting up the street like a green flame spreading across the town, engulfing everything in its dazzling light.

The people, how they acted so kind. They all knew each other and spoke to each other, greeted each other, smiled at each other. They would help with anything depending on who you asked. Everyone had a special separate skill. They would all help out in their own way, contributing in their own ways. So helpful they seemed.

A person once had trouble with his heating system and somehow within an hour of asking for help from his neighbour, a small, shiny, silver van parked up and repaired the system for a low cost. A discount for being local to the area. How joyful they all were, how seemingly kind they were.

Then there was me and my home. Before there were only two white tulips with one that hadn't bloomed yet. It was white like the other two. Then as soon I was born it bloomed; the petals colour on the inside tainted black. What beauty of nature.

The quiet child. How I felt and seemed so different to the other children in the area. They never approached me. All I heard was whispers of the words black tulip. They all played together during the morning breaks on the field with jump ropes, footballs and hula hoops. How fun it all seemed. It wasn't exactly the case when I watched all this alone on the side.

The blackness inside the tulip began to spread slowly across the petals as time drifted along. My parents seemed like rosy cheeked sweet parents and people. They greeted neighbours nicely and used to bake treats for their little business. They'd even share them out to anyone who'd pass by and address everyone with kindness. The kindness of this town was fake. Not once did they look at me with those kind eyes. Not once did anyone come to my help when I was in need. Not once did those white faced tulips reach out when I cried for help.

I reached my hand out. An entire town with their chaotically red eyes stared down at me with no response. I stopped calling out for help. I stopped trying to find help. I stopped reaching out with my hand. I stopped. The tulip almost all black. Quite like a curse silently spreading throughout the veins and exposed for the world to know the terrible omen that fell upon this house. The terrible omen that bloomed in the form of a child many years ago.

How the childhood slipped away in the wind as the world turned darker and darker. The brightness that others saw looked all so dead to me. What did I do wrong? I never knew what they wanted from me. The sorry sight in this little town. The outcast. The broken. The cursed.

The now black tulip child had left the town. I left town. For reasons that cut deeper than any blade could and with nowhere to go, I just kept walking. A petal slowly fell from the tulip back in the town. I reached a cliff edge. Another petal fell from the plant. I looked out at the sea and tried to imagine the world if I wasn't so lost. And another petal slowly drifted to the floor. I stood at the very edge with my eyes closed. Tears slowly slid down my cheeks. There was no holding them back. There was no meaning to them. No meaning to me. The last petal fell from the plant and the lost child was free.