Below is a story I wrote for a contest. It didn’t place. It was based on an earlier and much shorter story, which was based on a quote I read somewhere, sometime.
It turned dusk and I stole into the study to tend the fire and perform some perfunctory housekeeping, while Emma stalled them in the kitchen. My weekend excursions into the Empyrean had taken their toll: the clutter was a satisfying indicator of the depth and intensity of study. The laughter issuing through a few rooms and a few oaken doors was a good sign that she was their master, with her artful housewifely chatter about the perils of domestics and an early provision of teas and biscuits. I finished up and watched the blueness of winter night settle onto the newly-fallen inch of snow.
Inexplicably, perhaps via some mental run off from being waist-deep in Dante for the last month, I had retained the vision of a callow flower in my mind’s eye the entire day at university. It was green but not verdant; exhibiting signs of life without surely living. It did nothing the entire day but remain in its suspended, inanimate, fetal state, despite my imaginings to nudge it otherwise. Its immobility in this regard itched me inside the ear but caused no figurative pain, a phenomena that sprouted through to another manner of annoyance after taking lunch. I trained myself to dismiss the discomfort thoroughly, but not completely.
Within seconds they poured in (the wife could sniff a freshly organized room from miles away). Rank and file they were, a respectable parade of herringbone jackets and tobacco patches stuffed in shirt pockets. Emma was in tow with the remainder of our after-dinner comestibles.
They took their usual places, as did I after properly reassuring myself of my guests’ comfort. Immediately the pipes emerged, spoons clinked sprightly against porcelain, and a week’s worth of classroom anecdotes and mild grievances against the university’ board of directors were lobbied back and forth. I listened and waited like a tolerant grandfather (though I was one of the youngest among them) for the chatter to fade before broaching this week’s informal business.
“Did anyone catch a glimpse—” Henderson said in between sips, “—of the Stations coming out of Westminster today?”
“Mmm!” Radcliffe grunted, leaning forward. His ridiculous drop-step puffed out affirmation. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world, Hendy. Amazing the way they drudge through the same ol’ game year after year with such diligence.”
“I saw it as well,” Christoph blurted. “I was at the Hare. Abigail was lead soprano this year. The Hare: that’s — how far is that, Jonstone? — not even half a kilometer, sure?”
“Little over, little over.”
Old Jonstone was the eldest of us, and he said very little except when his sagely faculties were called upon by us, his intellectual lessers. He was stooped over more than normal at his traditional seat closest to the fire, cup and saucer in hand and pale bushy eyebrows knitting together in simple pleasure.
“Right, right, that long” Christoph said. “It was the third stop, where He first falls. Or the second? Not sure. Well, let me tell you: poor Abby was so deathly bored of the whole affair it appeared as if she would be taking His place”
The jab elicited a few hearty chuckles all around, except Jonstone. He merely maintained his quiet gaze on the floor and sipped his tea intermittently. Then, stoically, he turned his face to the fireplace.
The spectral flower bent upwards. I tried, perhaps unsuccessfully, to hide my startled reaction. It was fortunate for me that everyone else was still tending to their laughter.
“What say you, Jonstone? Did you catch it this time around?” Henderson asked.
“At long last, yes. I must say I quite enjoyed it.” His voice was smooth and gentle and he did not break from the flames.
“Come now, Harry, ol’ boy,” Henderson said. “You must’ve gone through that whole bit for decades. Not doubt took part once or twice. You can’t possibly get anything out of it now, eh?”
“Why is it,” Filbert said, with his toad-like fleshy jowls bouncing with gathering mirth, “That the Archbishop Bidwell still keeps going up Vincent and then to Greycoat? Surely he remembers what happened five years ago. He was presiding then, wasn’t he? Blasted newbies and their stubbornness.”
“Yes, yes,” Radcliffe said. Puff-puff. “I remember that. He was indeed leading. It was those gabby boys that disrupted—”
“He does it every year,” Jonstone said to everyone. It was not a shout, but his words were firm enough to grab attention. “They do it every year, like people everywhere do similar, because it’s something we need to hear.”
The fire snapped and crackled while we waited. The flower moved again.
“Thomas,” Radcliffe addressed me. “It appears as if the Missus has over-treacled the good Doctor’s tea.” He turned to Jonstone. “We’re cutting you off, sir! We—!”
“We need to hear it,” Jonstone interrupted again and slowly stood up. “Like this, without fail, because we must hear it one way or another. If not voluntarily, it has a nasty habit of making itself known to us. When it does show up unannounced it’s not nearly as damn pleasant as a procession.” The oath escaped his lips with astounding affection.
Despite Jonstone’s emphatic but unantagonizing speech there was an unsettling silence. After granting a decoded smile, he gingerly sat back down and quietly sipped.
“Well then,” I said. “Shall we begin?”
A few hours of spirited critique and debate ensued. No other mention of the procession was made. Emma and I bade farewell to my colleagues, and she retired for the evening.
As for me, I returned to my window view of the lighted streets and soft white ground. The flower, at some point in the evening, had come full bloom. The outward petals were a deep cobalt blue; the inside bore the visage of flames: orange, red, cathartic. More prominent, however, were the scores of other young flowers surrounding their mature counterpart, waiting for their season in which they’d match its blazing countenance.