The wandering mist dances in the city’s streetlights. A distorted symphony plays: humming lights, shuffling feet, a car alarm, clicking locks, slamming doors, and voices. From the boulevard’s flowerbeds, the wind whirls scents upward, providing the mist an aerial partner for this springtime ball. Tonight, spring casts its spell over the metropolis.
A woman strolls down the boulevard. Her red gown flapping in the breeze. She smiles. She has held it together. Now for the first time since coming here, she has started to earn some money. After only a month, her client list is growing. A hair dresser in the big city. They like the way that she keeps to herself, not too many smiles or too many questions. She didn’t like questions herself. She was starting to feel calmer about her situation.
Her red fingernails comb through her free-falling brown hair. The hasty brown dye job had lost its shoe polish look.
She inhales the boulevard's aroma and walks onward. Suddenly, she stops as if someone is pulling her hair. The air contains a bitter bouquet that taunts her nostrils. Her body aches. She stands, perplexed. A man approaches her from behind. His eyes glow. A bead of sweat trickles down his nose. He has lost these battles before. He smiles knowing that time heals most wounds, but not desire. Tonight is going to be his night. He has studied her, knows the territory. He straightens his hat and adjusts his smile. The bait is fastened. He moves in.
Ten feet away, his feet begin clamoring against the pavement. Alarmed, she turns towards him, grasping her handbag. She scowls at his presence. His well-thought out plan of seduction plummets into a pit. With his crest collapsing, the police officer manages a polite nod, “Evening Mam.” He hastily hurries after his partner who examines a tipped-over trash can about fifty feet down the street. She looks away. “Can’t people just leave me alone.”
She approaches a closing flower shop, surrounded by an outside display. What is that scent? The seducing petals lounge carelessly in front of her. The distinct aroma of the California roses makes her shudder. Her mouth drops. The roses, her tormentors sneer in recognition. “Get home.”
A bitter cough distracts her. She turns, noticing a figure lingering under a dull street light on the opposing corner. Litter whirls around his oil stained hiking boots and his tattered jeans. Reflections of light from his black leather jacket flicker throughout the shadows. Smoke pours from his mouth as his cigarette runs low. Abruptly, he wings his butt through the air. It drowns in the gutter water. His eyes intrude her existence. “Hey lady! Hey lady!” She rushes away. He laughs and lights another butt.
Minutes later, she stops. “That smell again, the damn flowers.” She continues on. “He had deserved it. That bastard.” She wanders on. “Damn. I am not even close to being home. I need to pay attention. I need to get home.” Tracing her steps back, she sees the flower shop. The roses fume at her in a hiss of foul fragrance. The smell sucks her strength like a leech sucks blood. Her legs ache.
“Forget it, get out of here.” She takes a deep breath. “Just get home, get home.” She soon spots familiar neon sign. Only a quarter of a mile to home, to safety. She hears heavy footsteps drawing closer. Freezing fear slinks up her spine. She coaches herself. “Go…go.” A cool wind blows the white mist around her in weird configurations. Closer and clearer, the pounding footsteps hammer her ears.
She shoots around. Her eyes straining, searching. Nothing. Only a blindfold of mist. "Who is it? What is there?"
No answer.
She sprints away. “Home…home.” She glances backwards. Her lungs gasp. The footsteps are gaining. “Ahhh!” She falls. Sticky liquid pours down her face. Her world goes dark. Her nostrils fill with a putrid stench. She dry heaves into the darkness. Her ankles ache. Her forehead throbs. A rusted metal container broke her fall. She lay in a heap of garbage bags, piled on the street corner. Her heel had cracked and snapped off, bringing her down. Her primed body dimming in slimy sludge.
In a daze, she squints, trying to focus. She sees a figure's silhouette emerging from the mist. "Who is it? Help? Go away. Please go away." Something moved forward. "Go away! Go away!" She grabbed a 38 special from her handbag. She fires.
It was gone.
She gets up. “I gotta get outta here.” She hobbles away.
She reaches her studio apartment. She enters her place. She collapses on to her bed and shuts her eyes. Usually, sleep comes quick at 2 in the morning; however tonight memories and guilt escaped their prison cells into her head. She tries to think it away, imprison it, but she is too tired. Her life is collapsing, worn and weighed down with guilt from her act or fear. The fear of getting caught. Or someone seeking revenge. As she takes three Xanax, she remembers what brought her here from California a month ago.
. . .
She slowly opens the front door. The brass handle is cold. The room, once glamorous is dark and empty. She hits the light. Their inland bungalow is now desolate in décor. Everything sold for cash. She always hated this place and this location. Why so isolated? No one ever around. According to him, however, lovely California is fantastic this time of year, the place to be - utter paradise. Once living here was tolerable, now, no way, the bum had been fired from his 25 grand a week job. Now, no money, nothing, and no reason for his abuse.
She sneezes. “The damn yellow roses out back. God, that stench.” He spent every day now in that garden. She feels around the wall for the overhead light knob. She spins it to dim. “No sign of him, just a wilted pot of flowers and an empty bottle of vodka on the coffee table.” Her easy life was over. He had become a joke, wallowing in sarcasm and booze. Both had had affairs. Drugs. She dims the lights. A sharp voice silenced her revelations.
"Where ya been? On the town? Whore. "Yea. Drunk again." "Damn, you. Out with him. Why because he's got money." "Shut up! Get a job and you wouldn't need to worry about it. Stuck in your latest failure." "You're done." Her husband draws back his fist.
Completely unaware that his era had ended, the husband leaps forward to pound her into oblivion like the times before. She, however, prescribes to an alternative plan and uncorks a round from her 38, which waited, in her hand from the second that she opened the door. "This time, you're dead."
One bullet struck his face; two penetrated through his shoulder; three bullets rested in the kitchen cabinets. Her body shakes. A waterfall of emotion cascades down on top of her. For a moment, she drowns in confusion.
What could she do? She should have just left him. She sobs. “Why do I always go overboard? If caught, I will do time for this, my time. It was just self-defense though - right? I never reported any of the other stuff before. I’ve been cheating on him.” Her reassurance ran away. She begins to weep and then sneezes. Looking out the window, her eyes center on the garden. Her troubled senses strangely focus on the flower's fragrance. The aroma stuns her nose. “That smell. The roses, yes, the roses. Where is the shovel?”
A laborious task for sure. Action without error is needed. She begins hauling the still twitching body out the door. She pulls him out to the front lawn. She rests. His body seems too heavy to move. The buds beckon her onward. She drags the body over the grass to the back garden. She rests. As she pulls, his hand occasionally grasps at her body. Plodding through the fertilized muck, she reaches the roses. Once there, she feels sweat spilling down her face. Her eyes sting from the dripping eye shadow. She walks back and gets the shovel.
Back in the garden, hours of toil lay before her. The irrigation puddles reflect white moonlight onto his body. As she paces off the burial plot, his body convulses. She takes a deep breath. The body must be disposed of. She starts, uprooting the fragile flowers from their resting-place. Her long red nails systematically dig through the black soil around each flower; then her fingers meticulously remove each plant unharmed. One of her nails splits, tearing her skin and starting a trickle of blood. She absorbs the pain and continues, eventually, the flowers are removed and placed aside. Sweat and mascara pour down her face. Her eyes burn as she plunges the shovel into the earth.
After a long hour, her work is drawing to an end. By her measurements, the grave is long enough and deep enough.
She positions the body next to the hole. She sits on the ground beside it, putting her feet on the side of the body, pushing her legs out straight, sending the body into its shallow grave. After that task, she summons her remaining resolve to shovel dirt on her husband. He minutely squirms. Finally, she dumps enough dirt on top of him, weighing down any last movement. He is buried. She smooths the top soils. Her spine chills as she places the brilliant buds over the corpse. Each flower hisses in the breeze. She gives a queer smile. "You and your damn flowers."
“No neighbors would ask questions. They had planned to move in about 2 months and who around here know them anyway. After he lost his job, they had no reason to stay: a perfect excuse. They were in financial ruin. Everything was in his name. They would think that he took off. No one would be out here for weeks. Their good time buddies were gone. The hell with the rest of the guys too. The affairs were more to get him than anything else. A fresh start was needed before and even more so now. The perfect ploy, if anyone asked, he had gone ahead to make arrangements and could not be contacted. There was nothing of value here anyway.”
Her only thoughts are gathering her remaining clothes, jamming her bags, and fleeing form this fiendish funeral. “The East Coast, a new start.” She would play it cool. Her old friend owned a hair salon; maybe he needed help. She would lay low. She would bury it all inside. Everything would be OK. . . .
A sound shoots through her troubled mind as the present pounces forward . . . she is drenched in sweat. She notices her apartment door whipping open on its hinges. Another noise sounds by her window. There, coming through the glass pane, a bouquet of yellow roses. She lays in utter silence. The clock spins in complete ticks. “He has brought them.” There is no escape.
Rolling over, she snatches up her gun and blasts away, emptying the chamber. Plaster and glass shower the floor. With a final motion, she throws the gun, sending it spinning across the floor. "I did it! I did it! I was afraid. I am afraid."
She looks around. No flowers. There is nothing there, just smashed glass and bullet holes. The sun rises outside.
She stares at the broken window, mumbling. “He deserved it.” Its shade once protected her from all accusing eyes but now flaps in the wind. The wind carries in an overpowering floral odor. The permeating stench engulfs her. "He deserved it. Deserved it.” She begins to pack her bags. “I need to go. Someone will call the cops.” The window shade coils with a jolt. Blazing through the remaining glass, the morning sun captures the lonely room. “I will never get away. Never. He will always be with me. A thorn stabbing.”