FLOWERS

Darla hushed her daughter when the child asked to enter the florist’s shop. The seemingly constant weather of Auckland made for low variety, and children did not need flowers anyways. Her daughter exclaimed, “Mommy, look! The flowers are so pretty, why can’t we have some?” She sighed and told her daughter, “I know the woman inside, she is not very nice to children. We will go somewhere else.” She knew well that was the only florist’s shop her daughter would ever have the chance to see in at least the next few years. There was no somewhere else.

The woman inside was her ex-husband’s wife, and the shop was originally opened by Darla and her husband before her daughter was born. Darla’s childhood dream was to run a florist’s shop, and her dream persevered through years of school and college until she met her husband. He liked the idea and they started the shop together. However, disaster struck when her husband left her for another woman and claimed the shop for himself through legalities. Since he owned the shop now, he was required to pay for childcare and monthly maintenance for Darla. Her daughter was born only months before they separated.

The lost shop had broken down Darla like nothing ever had, but the interesting turn came when her ex-husband could not manage to pay the monthly amounts anymore owing to the bad performance of the shop. Somewhere, she always knew, the shop would never be able to sustain 3 people. The warehouse she worked in now, had “Bring your kid” day, and she briskly walked through the gates with her daughter amid grey and blue tinted machinery, far from flowers, and yet she felt relieved, for flowers could never feed her daughter.