Where Are My Flowers?

Short Fiction by Austin Fowler

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Sometimes, in the midst of it all—all the shit, I mean—I wonder if I’m doing something wrong.

Because it certainly feels like I’m doing something wrong. Those who tell us what we should and shouldn’t do say we shouldn’t compare ourselves to other people. But we all do it, and we all know we all do it, and when I do it, I come away pretty damn sure I’m doing something really fucking wrong.

But it’s not the expected things that bother me the most—the dreadful comparisons of success, looks, social ability, intelligence. I’ve got those insecurities too, fear not. But that’s not what I think about the most.

No, I think about peace of mind. Specifically, the peace of mind that I don’t have, but that I swear to god everyone else does. At least, it seems they can find it amidst the shit.

Take my neighbor, for example. She’s a single mom of three—perhaps she’s divorced, widowed, I don’t know—and she lives in a small apartment on the first floor of my building. I’m positive her life is not easy. From my third-floor window, I can see down into the courtyard where she keeps several flowerpots. Every evening, around seven, she walks out into the courtyard, and she tends to her flowers. And as she does it, she just has this serene little look on her face, like nothing could really bother her. Without fail, as she’s doing this, her kids will wreak some sort of havoc and she’ll have to stop and go deal with it. But then she comes back to her flowers, and the smile returns, and she just looks so pleased to be doing what she’s doing. She looks totally at peace while she tends to those damn flowers.

Or how about my sister, the busiest person I know. She runs around accomplishing literally everything. In the time it takes me to talk myself into brushing my teeth, she surely does yoga, showers and dresses, and makes omelets for her and her partner. Then, over the course of the rest of the morning, while I mosey around before my shift at the restaurant, she secures multiple vendors at her big-time job, fires someone and hires somebody else, and demands a raise and gets it. On top of all that, she coordinates care and for our sick mother, something she insists on doing as the older sibling. Now, I’m not there when she does these many things, but I know they happen because she has me over for dinner sometimes and she tells me about her life (while serving pan-seared halibut that she “just decided to whip up”). And after we eat, and she’s loaded the dishwasher before I can even blink, I look at her and I think, you must be so stressed, you must be barely surviving. But no, she’ll just be sitting there, holding a glass of red wine, and she’ll be looking at a pot of flowers on the window sill, and a little smile will crawl across her face as she does so. She’ll stand and walk over to them and pull a dead leaf off the stem, and she’ll sit back down, and she’ll look at the flowers again, and her smile will broaden, and she’ll be at peace.

There are always flowers with these people, I swear.

Strangest of all is one of my colleagues at the restaurant. He’s a line cook like me, which means he barely makes enough money to survive on—like me. I’ve learned he lives in a studio on the shitty side of town, was recently broken up with in brutal fashion, and also recently had his bike stolen. To put the cherry on top of that shit sundae, most of his family has died in the past decade from a variety of illnesses. He has every reason to be unfriendly. To be pissed at the world. But nope, of course he isn’t. He’s pleasant, coming in every day and asking how everyone’s doing, smiling as he cuts potatoes on the line, just going about his merry way, wearing his floral boxers under his jeans (okay, I’m guessing here, but you know … flowers). He always says, “Can’t complain, can I?”, then he makes some joke and cuts some more fucking potatoes. I can’t believe this guy. I even trailed him home earlier this week, thinking this dude must be putting on a show. He got on the bus, became best friends with his seat mate during the ride, and then bounced up the steps of his apartment building and said hi to some neighbors who were leaving, jolly as could be. He even scratched the belly of their god damn dog and laughed out loud when it licked his face. It was honestly ridiculous. He was carefree. He was full of peace.

I mean come on. What the hell.

I’m definitely doing something wrong.

Because me? Remember all the shit I mentioned earlier? Yeah, I can’t get it out of my head. It lives there like a parasite. There’s my chronically ill mother, with whom my relationship is poor to very poor. There are the bills I can’t afford. There’s the lost religion of my youth. There’s the constant embarrassment from what I view as my awkward manner. And then there’s the fact that I’m just always, always tired. But the thing is, I’m not complaining about these things. Really, I’m not. Because everybody has things, and I know it. Lots of them have more shit to deal with than I do. They experience loss and shame, they cry and feel shitty. But somehow, someway, they bring themselves back to center and find ways to be happy. To be calm with acceptance.

To have peace of mind.

I’ll say it again: what the hell.

How people attain that state of being is beyond me. And I’ve tried, I swear. I’ve tried the things—the professional help, the self-help. I even went on a silent retreat (okay, I don’t have the money for a retreat, but I spent three full days in my apartment with the lights off, saying nothing, interacting with nobody, just watching TV and reading a horror novel). I don’t know why, but it didn’t make me feel any better.

How do people live with the shit and still be okay? How do they not just think about the shit, and about how much the shit stinks, and about how much they suck for thinking about it, and about how much of a narcissist they are for thinking about it, and in the end the furthest thing from their reach is peace of mind?

It's like peace is this thing that hangs out in various places around us. Most people can plainly see it, and though they have to wade through some shit in the process, they can still reach out and grab it when they need it. But for some reason my eyes are blind to it, and even though it’s right there, I’m just grabbing randomly at the air, stepping through more and more shit, never even coming close to the peace, my arms outstretched in the wrong direction, snatching at nothing.

I think the secret location of peace is known by everyone but me. Like they have their flowers, and peace lives there, but I don’t have those flowers.

Where are the flowers in my life to put me at peace?

Yes. That’s it. Where are my flowers?

Where are they?

But wait…

There are flowers. I look out my window and there are flowers. I see them. They’re there for me as much as they’re there for the next person. They’re pretty. They smell nice. They’re all different colors. I like colors.

I like flowers.

But I don’t feel the flowers. Yes, that’s what I want. I want to feel the flowers. Like my neighbor does after the kids wreak havoc and the flowers put a smile back on her face. And like my sister does after a hectic day, when she looks at her flowers and becomes content. And like my colleague does as he travels from his shitty job to his shitty studio, bouncing up the steps in his floral undergarments.

Yes. Yes. I want to feel the flowers. I want to look at them and feel them inside my heart and inside my head and be at peace.

But how do I do that? I really don’t know. It should be so easy, but it isn’t.

Please, somebody, I need to know.

How do I feel the flowers?

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Austin J. Fowler is a husband, father, and nonprofit manager from Seattle, WA, US. His short stories have appeared in The Chamber Magazine and Dark Speculations (forthcoming). His favorite tales (to write and read) are dark, speculative, redemptive, and humorous, especially if all at once.