Blossoms

Chapter 1

          She'd been picking at the raggedy yellow sofa for around thirty minutes now. The piss-yellow leather beneath her fingernails was so disgusting it had made her want to claw out her own eyes. A stack of papers left from Friday was still on the table, disregarded in the same manner her papers always were.

          Blossom was the Queen of Procrastination, and no silly work reports would get in her way. Even if they were due tomorrow. It was strange, how, when at the office throughout the week, Blossom mumbled curses under her breath about working hours, yet when the weekend's break finally came, she lay on her couch waiting for Monday.

          The truth of the matter was, it was nice to be able to complain about things as if she was important enough to have real problems. Still, Blossom's job was the only thing she actually had to occupy her time in life, and things were pretty lonely when she was huddled in her minuscule, barely-furnished apartment for hours on end.

          On the window sill sat a row of pots, each filled with its own leafy specimen. Though, the plants were not exactly... lively. It had been a week and half since Blossom had watered them. Still, it was quite a feat for her to even eat dinner occasionally, and microwave ramen at that. Strangely, instead of getting up and quenching her wilted vegetation, Blossom just watched them. They were, in some way, like her.

          She was sure she'd gone insane. Though her name wouldn't make one think so, Blossom was actually quite a dark person. Just not physically. Or mentally, exactly. It's not like she wanted to murder someone. She just expressed herself differently than others. For all her life Blossom had wanted to be an author. As a seven-year-old she would write pony stories on her father's Word Documents. Then, in middle school, she wrote a lot about depression. The world is a dark place. High school was her poetry faze. Still, in all these years of writing and developing stories, she'd never finished a book before. And even if she did, how would she know what to do with it when she was done?

          Anyways, being an author wasn't a stable job. When you think about it, neither was her office job, as pay was low and her reputation for completing tasks wasn't exactly perfect. But at least strangers wouldn't judge her for her life choices. She was partly to blame for her financial situation, as contemplating glass emptiness was more important than occupational tasks, and buying gum and the newest iTune releases was more important than paying rent and keeping the gas tank filled.

          Blossom had known since she'd been old enough to spell the word "dictionary" that she was a letdown. Even if she hadn't been one yet, she was always destined to be one. Not that her parents realized that. In their eyes, Blossom was doing great at work, and a promotion was on the horizon. That her neighbors were very polite people, and she'd made many friends since moving away. That was what Blossom told them anyway.

          In reality, she was on the brink of being fired, and she'd never met her neighbors. The only "friends" she'd made here were in the club late at night who only wanted a one night stand. A few had gotten what they'd set out for, but most were just in for a chuckle from the guys at the bar and a glare from Blossom. The closest person to her wasn't even a person, it was a rat named Twinkle who lived somewhere between the wooden divide of her and her nearby residents.

          Her bathroom faucet was broken, spitting at the hands which used it, her microwave didn't spin, and Blossom had to rotate whatever she was "making," usually her ramen, to the other side because something with the radiation system was functioning incorrectly, and her sweet front lawn was being overgrown by weeds. None of this she wanted to invest her time into solving, of course. Why would anybody want to do that with their own will?  Still, what did it hurt to occasionally water her flowers?