The Red Flower
By Joseph Sorestad
People feel with their hearts, but only understand only what they see.
It’s far too easy to fall under the impression that to have sight is to have knowledge and a grasp on the world. Many also treat the lack of sight as the equivalent of ignorance or shortsightedness. There’s even a saying for it: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”
If that’s so, then the whole planet in its entirety and all its inhabitants should be stripped of sight, left to wander about in the dark as I had once. Because what we see deludes us, persuades us unjustly, orchestrates the devious mechanisms of preconception. Rather, one needs nothing but to listen. Hear the earth rumble beneath their frozen feet, intake the laughter and sobbing of familiar and non-familiar alike, listen to the friendly wind crawl through the cool grass. For I once saw, but all went dark, and when I opened my eyes, all I ever saw was the red flower, radiant in its essence.
I never forgot a face, no matter how long I went without a crack of light later. Faces smiled, faces wept, faces contorted into comical messes, prompting giggles from me and Murray. His expressions were always the most familiar to me. Our entire childhoods were spent together; through the fertile months of unending rain where crops and livestock thrived, through the classroom lectures that lasted for at least eternities, through everything. During the dry months, there was little to do but talk about aero planes and what girls we had crushes on, but rarely did I need to listen anything Murray said, because watching each other’s many facial expressions was the best form of communication between the two of us.
But other faces were unfamiliar to the both of us; ones cloaked with sinister shadows concealing eyes. Venues, streets, and family restaurants were cheaply plastered with bright posters displaying the entities we knew so little about, yet hated with a deep-rooted passion. In many posters their ranks swelled like an overgrown garden, ensnaring the solitary tree, the ally soldier that stood, valiant and unrelenting. They were the enemies, the villains, the monsters under the bed that made my country unable to sleep knowing they existed.
My eyes were truly perpetrated with deceit during one cinema that would never fade from memory. The enemies, the monsters under the bed, played the leads as themselves. Unlike faces, I couldn’t remember films well, but never could I wash my memory of the segment of the film where the attired enemy soldier threw a makeup-clad mother to the frigid pavement before setting upon her infant child with a sharpened bayonet. There was no colour in cinemas, nor sound, but Murray’s eyes gleamed many shades through narrowed slits at the screen venomously, visibly ready to assault the gigantic projection of the bed monster. Mine did too, but it was something I could feel rather than see.
They shined with the very same intensity the day my boots met the soil of Belgium, my fingers tensely curled around the trigger of my Enfield, my companion. In my head, hell was surreal, lit with orange flames and brimstone galore. Never did I expect to see it in the form of a yellow haze that consumed anything in its path, scooping into the trenches and earning agonized hollers from its indiscriminant captives. Allies and enemies alike tumbled as I ran for a nearby trench and they writhed with strangled cries barely escaping their lungs, hiding their eyes from me and the gas overhead.
Then I was stopped dead in my tracks at the unnerving tint of foggy yellow in the atmosphere and then the sensation of fire licking at my white globes. I cried out, but regretted it when my throat filled with fire as well, and then I was mindlessly writhing in the filth of blood and mud as well.
I could hardly see, but my eyes were too blistered to close as well, and off in the distance I could barely make out the figures storming past with boots slapping the mud, some coming eerily close to my head. Through the raked moist soil I saw creeks and rivers of red, winding and turning and sweeping through each crevice in the earth, flowing towards a specter of nature standing amongst the carnage.
A flower, radiant in its essence.
A pair of hands clamped on my shoulders and tore my face from the soil; they were the kind of hands that felt like they were best fitted to hold a baseball bat, or carry two-by-fours. The same hand clamped a fabric over my gaping maws and I gagged at the stench of something also familiar. Murray’s face shined through cracked spectacles with tears running down them as they lock with mine. I think my eyes were tearing up too, but it had nothing to do with relief. The blur of Murrays face and eyes staring down at me began to distort further until the entire battlefield was a vivid mixture of colours absorbing each other unendingly.
Then the colours disappeared, and so did my sight.
But the loss of sight should not be confused with blindness, because I told no lie to my comrades, or to Murray, that I saw a red flower every night, dream in and dream out. Perfected blackness was set askew by it when the moon could not illuminate the night, as it shined with each growing howl of wind through the Belgium skies.
I didn’t sleep many nights, but not because of the apparition of the blood specter, but because the wind started to carry a voice that went unheard upon my ears for years before. Those nights, I huddled closely to my flaky and musky indent in the trench like it was a blanket, as spooked as a child by the stifled weeping and weak coughing of the yet-to-be-departed littering the battlefield. Some cried out for God and some for their mothers to whisk them away from this inferno of fear and pain. In another language they were, but I understood them clearly. Because when I heard their whimpers and agonized moaning, I saw their face, a shaded contortion in the center of my field of view with tears staining their cheeks.
There were no monsters under the bed. There were only bedmates, miles away, that wouldn’t go to sleep.
The bandages on my eyes were soaked by morning.
My personal symphony of melancholy played every single night as a new reality. The dirt I wallowed in was pooling with sloshing filth. The pungent air that still smelled of rot and chemicals was suffocating. And the internal wailing that rattled each bone never ceased till morning arrived, and the red flower, radiant in its essence, bloomed once more. One night, I found it within myself to grope about blindly in the dark and pull myself towards the top of the trench towards the sound of crying. I wanted to know where it was coming from.
But when I felt the water-logged soil imprint beneath my knees, my head spun with the sound of heart wrenching sobbing that emanated from everywhere; from the distant span of farmland occupied by the foe, to the shrieking wind above my head, to the soil soaked with iron, and even inside of the trenches from which I ascended. Red flower, radiant in your essence, save me from this horror!
More than one set of hands was shaking me the next morning, scolding me, demanding an explanation to my madness, then worrying and fretting as I went limp, and then a canteen was opened and liquid purity poured into my mouth.
I departed from Belgium only weeks later, though I listened intently for any sound that may try to drag me back to the land of death. I felt the wagon bump with each compact row of harvest we’d travel over. The wind carried a scent of something other than death; a smell of wheat, maybe even livestock. I swiveled my head left and right, feeling but not feeling the breath of a ghost on my neck, chilling but brief.
Murray laughed at something I couldn’t see and then I realized something profound: I could see his face when I heard his voice. It was a tired and calloused expression, but buried under those scars was a gleam of hope. I also saw hope in the voices of the now departed each night. The enemy—no— the voices contained the same small but existent spark of light for a future. With suddenness of a gust traveling across a field of wild grass, the hateful demon of preconception that stroked my hair during the cinema dissipated into the daylight. And for the first time in weeks, I was able to breathe.
The air crackled and hummed.
An explosion of pain rippled through my shoulder as I felt it become soaked in my own blood, and I toppled forward off of the wagon. My face met the stained soil once more. Murray screamed a face of anguish and horror that registered in my brain with pristine definition. Shouts were exchanged but silenced by the barrage of bullets whipping past us like thunder gods. Red fluid flowed through the maze of cracks within the broken soil, extending towards the specter in the corner of my eye.
I tumbled toward eternity.
Hear the crying of the living, spouting straight from the hearts that beat out of unison. Hear the prayers, the hopes, the angry fits, and the same question repeated throughout life: “Why, God, why did you choose him?” Hear noisy instruments play, causing the soil to vibrate and stir. Then after two minutes of clean and unearthly silence, listen intently as the roar of engines become fainter and fainter, finally assimilating into the wind current of voices still singing.
We gather around, the lines of our extend palms lit a bright orange from the specter of blood. Nobody looks at each other, because we see each other’s faces through the flower.
Hear the gate to an overgrown orchard in the expanse of fields creak and clack with each time the wind toys with it, causing it to bang against its frame lightly. Hear the humming of aero planes overhead, carried through the purest of airs. Hear the chirps from nests of birds as they speak, listen, touch, and teach within the trees that rustle with the friendly wind.
Do you remember me? I cried for you years ago and just yesterday. I saw your voice when you cried for me. And you saw it too, didn’t you? Cry as you feel, my friend; the red flower will relay our tearful joy. Be at peace!
Hear the time pass without pause as the calendars make their mark in the iron rich soil. Hear the warm rain fall each season, giving rise to the vegetation that marches through the process of growth. Hear the young women and men who will fill the air and skies with an innocent laughter scarcely shared by those who set foot here before. Listen to the heartbeat of the earth and look closely to the east. See the blood specter of sleep standing resolute amongst the green grass.
Nobody raises a quarrel here. For the red flower is the enemy’s kaleidoscope into my soul, and mine into his. The women, men, and children huddle close together in the darkness, gathering as close as they can to the flower in the center with its bountiful petals of soft red. And through our flower we send a wish to the yet-to-be departed:
May the entire world open its ears instead of its eyes!
And may every human on Earth one day stand in a prairie of content, blooming with the blood specter of sleep, the red flower, radiant in its essence.
By Joseph Sorestad
People feel with their hearts, but only understand only what they see.
It’s far too easy to fall under the impression that to have sight is to have knowledge and a grasp on the world. Many also treat the lack of sight as the equivalent of ignorance or shortsightedness. There’s even a saying for it: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”
If that’s so, then the whole planet in its entirety and all its inhabitants should be stripped of sight, left to wander about in the dark as I had once. Because what we see deludes us, persuades us unjustly, orchestrates the devious mechanisms of preconception. Rather, one needs nothing but to listen. Hear the earth rumble beneath their frozen feet, intake the laughter and sobbing of familiar and non-familiar alike, listen to the friendly wind crawl through the cool grass. For I once saw, but all went dark, and when I opened my eyes, all I ever saw was the red flower, radiant in its essence.
I never forgot a face, no matter how long I went without a crack of light later. Faces smiled, faces wept, faces contorted into comical messes, prompting giggles from me and Murray. His expressions were always the most familiar to me. Our entire childhoods were spent together; through the fertile months of unending rain where crops and livestock thrived, through the classroom lectures that lasted for at least eternities, through everything. During the dry months, there was little to do but talk about aero planes and what girls we had crushes on, but rarely did I need to listen anything Murray said, because watching each other’s many facial expressions was the best form of communication between the two of us.
But other faces were unfamiliar to the both of us; ones cloaked with sinister shadows concealing eyes. Venues, streets, and family restaurants were cheaply plastered with bright posters displaying the entities we knew so little about, yet hated with a deep-rooted passion. In many posters their ranks swelled like an overgrown garden, ensnaring the solitary tree, the ally soldier that stood, valiant and unrelenting. They were the enemies, the villains, the monsters under the bed that made my country unable to sleep knowing they existed.
My eyes were truly perpetrated with deceit during one cinema that would never fade from memory. The enemies, the monsters under the bed, played the leads as themselves. Unlike faces, I couldn’t remember films well, but never could I wash my memory of the segment of the film where the attired enemy soldier threw a makeup-clad mother to the frigid pavement before setting upon her infant child with a sharpened bayonet. There was no colour in cinemas, nor sound, but Murray’s eyes gleamed many shades through narrowed slits at the screen venomously, visibly ready to assault the gigantic projection of the bed monster. Mine did too, but it was something I could feel rather than see.
They shined with the very same intensity the day my boots met the soil of Belgium, my fingers tensely curled around the trigger of my Enfield, my companion. In my head, hell was surreal, lit with orange flames and brimstone galore. Never did I expect to see it in the form of a yellow haze that consumed anything in its path, scooping into the trenches and earning agonized hollers from its indiscriminant captives. Allies and enemies alike tumbled as I ran for a nearby trench and they writhed with strangled cries barely escaping their lungs, hiding their eyes from me and the gas overhead.
Then I was stopped dead in my tracks at the unnerving tint of foggy yellow in the atmosphere and then the sensation of fire licking at my white globes. I cried out, but regretted it when my throat filled with fire as well, and then I was mindlessly writhing in the filth of blood and mud as well.
I could hardly see, but my eyes were too blistered to close as well, and off in the distance I could barely make out the figures storming past with boots slapping the mud, some coming eerily close to my head. Through the raked moist soil I saw creeks and rivers of red, winding and turning and sweeping through each crevice in the earth, flowing towards a specter of nature standing amongst the carnage.
A flower, radiant in its essence.
A pair of hands clamped on my shoulders and tore my face from the soil; they were the kind of hands that felt like they were best fitted to hold a baseball bat, or carry two-by-fours. The same hand clamped a fabric over my gaping maws and I gagged at the stench of something also familiar. Murray’s face shined through cracked spectacles with tears running down them as they lock with mine. I think my eyes were tearing up too, but it had nothing to do with relief. The blur of Murrays face and eyes staring down at me began to distort further until the entire battlefield was a vivid mixture of colours absorbing each other unendingly.
Then the colours disappeared, and so did my sight.
But the loss of sight should not be confused with blindness, because I told no lie to my comrades, or to Murray, that I saw a red flower every night, dream in and dream out. Perfected blackness was set askew by it when the moon could not illuminate the night, as it shined with each growing howl of wind through the Belgium skies.
I didn’t sleep many nights, but not because of the apparition of the blood specter, but because the wind started to carry a voice that went unheard upon my ears for years before. Those nights, I huddled closely to my flaky and musky indent in the trench like it was a blanket, as spooked as a child by the stifled weeping and weak coughing of the yet-to-be-departed littering the battlefield. Some cried out for God and some for their mothers to whisk them away from this inferno of fear and pain. In another language they were, but I understood them clearly. Because when I heard their whimpers and agonized moaning, I saw their face, a shaded contortion in the center of my field of view with tears staining their cheeks.
There were no monsters under the bed. There were only bedmates, miles away, that wouldn’t go to sleep.
The bandages on my eyes were soaked by morning.
My personal symphony of melancholy played every single night as a new reality. The dirt I wallowed in was pooling with sloshing filth. The pungent air that still smelled of rot and chemicals was suffocating. And the internal wailing that rattled each bone never ceased till morning arrived, and the red flower, radiant in its essence, bloomed once more. One night, I found it within myself to grope about blindly in the dark and pull myself towards the top of the trench towards the sound of crying. I wanted to know where it was coming from.
But when I felt the water-logged soil imprint beneath my knees, my head spun with the sound of heart wrenching sobbing that emanated from everywhere; from the distant span of farmland occupied by the foe, to the shrieking wind above my head, to the soil soaked with iron, and even inside of the trenches from which I ascended. Red flower, radiant in your essence, save me from this horror!
More than one set of hands was shaking me the next morning, scolding me, demanding an explanation to my madness, then worrying and fretting as I went limp, and then a canteen was opened and liquid purity poured into my mouth.
I departed from Belgium only weeks later, though I listened intently for any sound that may try to drag me back to the land of death. I felt the wagon bump with each compact row of harvest we’d travel over. The wind carried a scent of something other than death; a smell of wheat, maybe even livestock. I swiveled my head left and right, feeling but not feeling the breath of a ghost on my neck, chilling but brief.
Murray laughed at something I couldn’t see and then I realized something profound: I could see his face when I heard his voice. It was a tired and calloused expression, but buried under those scars was a gleam of hope. I also saw hope in the voices of the now departed each night. The enemy—no— the voices contained the same small but existent spark of light for a future. With suddenness of a gust traveling across a field of wild grass, the hateful demon of preconception that stroked my hair during the cinema dissipated into the daylight. And for the first time in weeks, I was able to breathe.
The air crackled and hummed.
An explosion of pain rippled through my shoulder as I felt it become soaked in my own blood, and I toppled forward off of the wagon. My face met the stained soil once more. Murray screamed a face of anguish and horror that registered in my brain with pristine definition. Shouts were exchanged but silenced by the barrage of bullets whipping past us like thunder gods. Red fluid flowed through the maze of cracks within the broken soil, extending towards the specter in the corner of my eye.
I tumbled toward eternity.
Hear the crying of the living, spouting straight from the hearts that beat out of unison. Hear the prayers, the hopes, the angry fits, and the same question repeated throughout life: “Why, God, why did you choose him?” Hear noisy instruments play, causing the soil to vibrate and stir. Then after two minutes of clean and unearthly silence, listen intently as the roar of engines become fainter and fainter, finally assimilating into the wind current of voices still singing.
We gather around, the lines of our extend palms lit a bright orange from the specter of blood. Nobody looks at each other, because we see each other’s faces through the flower.
Hear the gate to an overgrown orchard in the expanse of fields creak and clack with each time the wind toys with it, causing it to bang against its frame lightly. Hear the humming of aero planes overhead, carried through the purest of airs. Hear the chirps from nests of birds as they speak, listen, touch, and teach within the trees that rustle with the friendly wind.
Do you remember me? I cried for you years ago and just yesterday. I saw your voice when you cried for me. And you saw it too, didn’t you? Cry as you feel, my friend; the red flower will relay our tearful joy. Be at peace!
Hear the time pass without pause as the calendars make their mark in the iron rich soil. Hear the warm rain fall each season, giving rise to the vegetation that marches through the process of growth. Hear the young women and men who will fill the air and skies with an innocent laughter scarcely shared by those who set foot here before. Listen to the heartbeat of the earth and look closely to the east. See the blood specter of sleep standing resolute amongst the green grass.
Nobody raises a quarrel here. For the red flower is the enemy’s kaleidoscope into my soul, and mine into his. The women, men, and children huddle close together in the darkness, gathering as close as they can to the flower in the center with its bountiful petals of soft red. And through our flower we send a wish to the yet-to-be departed:
May the entire world open its ears instead of its eyes!
And may every human on Earth one day stand in a prairie of content, blooming with the blood specter of sleep, the red flower, radiant in its essence.