the fragrance of fire
short story ~ 1215 words

–

The girl dashes through the war-beaten path with agility, like a meteor streaking across a setting sky; unless you peered closely, you wouldn’t notice her at all.

Through her heavy eyelids caked with sweat and dirt, she huffs and puffs, her vision finally coming into focus. A few feet away lies dozens and dozens of soldiers, scattered like seeds on fresh soil (or rather, bombs on the battlefield). The soldiers must be sleeping, perhaps dying, a gruesome sight of dusty brown uniforms. Blood stains their medals, their tufts of once-soft hair, every part of their bodies huddled so close together.

All this is familiar, if not for the splash of beautiful color that makes her parched mouth drop wide open.

… pink?

She takes a tentative step closer.

Carried by the howling wind, a rosy shred of paper flutters and dances and finally lands on a young lieutenant’s tattered cheek.

No, not paper. Petals?

Another step.

She doesn’t care that she had all but abandoned her original tasks as a young medic; in this moment, a delicate, fantastical aura seems to surround her. On each wounded limb the wind places a speck of color, warm gold and passionate pink and creamy yellow, filling her vision with so much liveliness. The shape of them she remembers, but she can’t quite grasp: each memory before the war seems faded, a lantern just out of reach. But wait. No, it can’t be… no, it must be…

Flowers!

Again she gasps, feeling herself immediately transported to six years ago. Ms. Lin, the florist! The wonderful, wonderful fragrance of tulips! Suddenly, she is a child again, marveling at the wonders of life.

She finds herself running through the clearing with a spring in her step. She marvels at the transformation - each abrasion, each bruise, was now decorated with flowers of every shade gingerly placed on top. She examines the soldiers’ faces, their varied scars and wrinkles. The blossoms seem to heal them, she ponders as she crouches down, wishing this dream will last forever.

Or is it a dream? An illusion is only a mere step away from reality. With each flutter of the petals, she finds herself drifting away, carried by the gentle power of these miraculous flowers. Throughout each battle, each rise and fall of her country, she had never allowed herself to feel… so free. And so she treasures this moment. Memories of before the war float and bobble within her vicinity, drifting in and out of focus. Oh, how she misses her family - her rowdy siblings, constantly dashing through the cobblestone streets; her fierce yet kind mother, always ready to stand up for what she believed in. How she wishes they were here in this surreal garden - but then again, she… is glad they’d been spared from the horrors and pain of six whole years of fighting. You see, they had all died at the start of the civil war. Gone, whisked away in a split second.

But this isn’t a time to dwell on the past. She smiles despite herself, chapped lips turning upwards at the corners as she watches the florets work their magic. The petals dance on and on, hopping from a colorless soldier to another and filling the limp bodies with life. Her gaze follows the colors, her ears tuned to the whisper of the breeze. And there, there is when she spots something familiar, like a lark’s sorrowful tune rising above every other birdsong. Intimate; bittersweet.

…. father?

It cannot be mistaken, it cannot; the soldier has the same crease of his eyelids, the same ears that stuck out, the same crooked scar he amusingly acquired when he hit himself with a fishing pole. Except he was now leaning against the trunk of a pale birch, violets and forget-me-nots tucked ever so carefully in his blood stained hair.

Father!

Her breath feels caught in her lungs, and she doesn’t notice her tears until little droplets find their way into her jacket. Six years ago was when father last embraced her… before the world was flipped on its axis.

Missing-in-action, they’d said to her. No, not killed; missing. Missing, missing, missing - and there he was, standing right in front of her, in this too-good-to-be-true fantasy.

She watches her fingers in shock as they brush the rough surface of her father’s forearm. Scratchy and weary from war, but still the same strong, dependable arms… A finger brushes past his scar, and she feels all tingly as though caught in an illegal act. What am I doing anyway, stroking Father’s skin like museum pottery? I-is he even dead or alive? She floats above herself, seemingly losing control of her actions as she reaches in for an embrace. All this she does without paying any attention to her surroundings, a fatal mistake, for it might be too late -

Heat…

The girl blinks and stumbles backwards, suddenly under an unbearable swelter of a dozen suns. When she opens her eyes all she sees are red and orange, red and orange; no, not the bright shades in the petals, for they were gone; flaming tongues licking uniforms spreading across pistols, no it can’t be -

Fire!

The next moments whizz by in a blur.

She doesn’t stop to think about what’s going on - her war trained instincts take over, pushing her to run, faster faster faster! She hears aircraft circling above, the familiar noises barreling through her mind, heart beating faster faster faster. No time to think. Wait what but I thought - what happened to the flowers? Was that really a dream? Her legs burn with every stride, and her lungs fill with dreadful ash and soot. But no, what about the soldiers? What about father? Little embers everywhere, sizzling and popping and falling from the darkened sky.

She runs and runs and runs.

The once agile and lean legs that had carried her through the most horrifying scenes she’d ever imagined now felt like worn rubber.

Until at long last, the tyrannical heat seems to fade and the bombers out of earshot. A cool breeze washes over her throbbing scarlet cheeks.

Oh, is it over now?

Once again, she sobs.

Crouching on the muddy ground, she struggles to comprehend the events - well, everything really. She keeps on thinking she had failed to notice something - was my touching Father the cause for the flames? Did the petals turn into fire? The bombs were familiar, of course, although unexpected - was I sent back into reality? And most of all, what happened to the sweet fragrance of the tulips, the tranquility in that treasured moment?

Was it all a dream after all?

Her mind is fuzzy, her thoughts a tangled mess. She wonders what happened to the clear-minded medic she once was; she feels as though she may have gone mad.

So with the last ounces of her energy, she tries to move on. She stands up, brushes the dirt from her jacket. And in the distance, she seems to spot a speck of color…

Petals fluttering, each gently caressing a soldier’s ashen face -

An illusion is only a mere step away from reality.

She runs with childlike joy toward the warm gold and passionate pink and creamy yellow, renewed excitement filling her eyes with so much liveliness.

Has she forgotten?

–

That's it! I hope you enjoyed - I'm also using this for my excerpt for my swc co-leader app ^^

If you're curious, I meant for this to be sort of a full-circle story (as in it can repeat over and over), hopefully it makes sense? It was definitely satisfying to write while playing with repetition and themes of war, illusion/reality, and nature.