Alicia Liu comes from the small beachside town of Richmond, British Columbia, but currently studies as a high school student at the Western Academy of Beijing.
You, a Cactus Planter
You say you’ve never liked flowers, but the truth is, you simply can’t bear to see them wilt. Perhaps it’s because they remind you that one day, you’ll wilt too. So you prefer cacti, or maybe an aloe vera. They’re low-maintenance. Shrivel-proof: if you forget to water them for a week or two they’ll gladly resuscitate. They’re not as beautiful so when they finally die, your soft heart won’t feel a thing.
On Sundays, you tag along with whoever of your friends happens to be going to the Flower Market. Casually chatting as you walk along aisles of peonies and pansies, primroses and hyacinths, no one has to know that you won’t ever make a purchase. Just watching is enough. It gets a little hard somedays when the light is just right and the petals so soft and dewy and you watch your friends debating how much sugar to mix into the water as they load up flowers in their car.
Fools! They’re wasting time and money on something that’ll be in the compost bin after two weeks. Three if they’re lucky.
But one day, Oh! What’s this!
Petrified, you stand in the aisles of the flower market. Your friends tugs you along, but an invisible hammer has pounded nails through the soft flesh of your feet, deep into the ground.
Flowers aren’t supposed to be this beautiful.
Your world slides off the edge. Forget wasting money, you want to slice bits off your heart and bury it in the soil; this is a flower worth wilting for.
“Sorry, honey. That one’s been paid for already. Can I interest you in some roses? Freshly picked this morning!”
But you can’t tear your eyes off the flower, even as that smiley-faced bastard comes and places the flower on a cart bursting full of two hundred other blossoms and wheels it all away.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
You go home, telling yourself you never saw that flower. As you water a cactus, the familiar emptiness reaches unbearable heights. So you slam your hand down on a cactus and it bursts. Doesn’t matter. Just a cactus. You throw the pieces outside the window, but those spines remain lodged in the tips of your finger, burrowed into the palm of your hand.
There they are now still, festering, drawing pus.
There they will be, forever reminding you of their existence, of the existence of the flower that you’ll never see again, any time you tenderly extend your fingers to feel, anytime you feebly attempt to hold anything close.