”I’m sorry” I repeated. ”We’re all out of the blue ones.”
“All out?” the old woman asked. “How can you be all out?”
“We have some beautiful purple azaleas that-“
“They’re not blue!” she protested, stomping her foot. “They have to be blue!”
“Mrs.Morris, we have several types of-“
“But they’re not goddamn blue!”
Using her whole arm, she bowled over an entire display case of herbs. Ramson, dill, basil, all spilled out on the floor in one angry swoop. I just stared at the mess in disbelief, mouth agape.
“You’re getting me blue, you grinning bitch! You’re getting me blue!”
Mrs.Morris stormed out, almost knocking over a stack of pots on the way out.
My hands were shaking.
Things had gotten out of hand.
It wasn’t always like this.
My mother used to be a flower girl. She had a small stall by the railroad that she’d tended since she was 13 years old. When she was 17, she fell in love with the son of a local rancher. That man ended up being my father, a few years and a shotgun wedding later.
My father wanted to give her everything in the world. She went from a stall to a flower shop just off the main street. That shop was her sanctuary, her home away from home. 12 hours a day, no matter if open or not, that’s where she’d be. “The Green Gardens”, or the “Big Green” was her baby just as much as I was.
I never intended to work there myself. Sure, I helped out, but my ambition was to be a marine biologist. But my mom got sick, and she needed more help around the Big Green. Over the course of a few months, she went from 12 hours a day to about 2 hours a week. The rest of the time, the Big Green was just me and dad, and he had other work to do.
I remember celebrating my 20th birthday behind the counter at the Big Green. Someone had to tend the shop.
I was 22 when my mom passed on. She never stood a chance, she just… withered away, much like a flower. They never really figured out what the problem was. She had a ton of symptoms, but no apparent cause. The closest they could find was a calcium deficiency. It was as if her body was just angry with her.
Dad and I thought about selling the Big Green, but we just couldn’t bring ourselves to do it. No one else wanted to keep running the shop; all they wanted was the property. Dad didn’t have the heart to see the place turned into a coffee shop, or a bar. The Big Green had to stay green.
I remember one discussion I had with him, the night we decided to keep the place open. He’d invited me over for dinner, and we’d just finished a large serving of pasta Bolognese. For a few minutes, we just sat there at the table, staring at our empty plates. The silence was undercut by the kitchen clock, ticking away.
“No one thought it’d grow,” he said, suddenly. “The ground is… rough. Too much calcium.”
“Mom made it work” I nodded.
“In a way, yeah.” he agreed. “But you know… to the soil, no one is perfect.”
Dad wasn’t dealing with the loss very well. He eventually quit his job, and our joint venture to keep the Big Green running turned into a solo effort. He moved out of town, leaving the family home and the Big Green in my care. I couldn’t blame him, and yet, I did.
I celebrated a lot of birthdays behind that counter. And as I started to close in on thirty, I’d left my marine biology dreams far behind.
But dad was right about a few things. The soil really wasn’t made for growing flowers. While a lot of the flowers we got came from outside suppliers, we had a few special local flowers that we grew in our greenhouses. Mostly forget-me-nots, garden roses, lilacs, and sunflowers. We also had a few tracheliums for flower arrangements.
Over the years, it was getting harder and harder to get anything to grow. The garden roses just started falling apart and the lilacs were losing their vibrance. Even the flowers inside the shop were getting drier and drier, no matter how much you watered them. I remember one early June morning when I got to the shop and everything in the front window had died overnight. I’d replaced every grain of soil my mother had used, but death came either way.
I closed the shop early that day. I was considering not opening it again.
But this is where things started to change.
The next day, I noticed two older women looking at the front window of the shop. I’d cleaned up most of the dead plants from the previous day, but there were a few left. But right there, in the corner of the window, I’d forgotten to remove a few of the dead sunflowers.
Except, they weren’t dead. They were very much alive. They were, however, a vibrant blue, with black stems. Blue? Weird.
“Trying something new?” asked Mrs.Celise. “Lovely color!”
“Yeah,” I nodded and slid the key in the door. “Yeah, it… it is.”
They looked at me, expecting some kind of explanation. I had none. Instead I just looked at this strange flower that’d popped up in my window like an intruder.
And strangely enough, it felt like I was the intruder, not the flower.
While most of my inventory had dried up, a few select flowers had regrown. A few sunflowers, some lilacs, dahlias, and freesias. They were a bit smaller, but very much alive; although they had this vibrant blue color. I’d never seen anything like it.
Mrs.Celise and her friend “oohd” and “aahd” over what they thought were something completely new.
“They’re all blue!” they laughed. “My, isn’t that special?”
“Did you color them?” asked Mrs.Celise. “Or did you grow them like this?”
“I certainly didn’t color them.”
But then again, I didn’t grow them either.
All throughout the day, people who usually just walked by stopped to look in the window. Every single flower that’d grown back in that vibrant blue color got sold. It was a blowout sale, completely out of nowhere. Some bought so many that they could barely carry them. They all just stopped by the window, staring slack-jawed at the strange flowers. I swear, some of the flowers seemed to just pop up out of nowhere. Customers smelled the flowers, stroked the petals, and admired the many variations of the vibrant blue. Two grown men from a nearby construction site almost got into a brawl over a bouquet of garden roses.
As I closed up shop that day, only a handful of flowers remained; none of them blue. A few survivors who’d lived through the drought. I made a call to my supplier, but they weren’t able to send any extra shipments on short notice. Instead, I had to bring in whatever I had from the greenhouses.
But I was shocked to see the greenhouses full to the brim with blue flowers. Slightly smaller, but blue nonetheless. Grown out of dead soil, these bright flowers thrived.
Seemingly overnight, the Green Gardens had turned blue. I didn’t know what to think, but people seemed to love them. I was still on the fence. Something didn’t feel right. Whenever I was alone with them, I felt somehow… threatened. Like they were turning towards me. Watching me. Evaluating my efforts.
As I got in my car that night, I called my dad. It was the first time I’d talked to him for months. We’d grown apart, and we usually didn’t talk unless something important came up. Either that, or a quick call for the holidays. But this… this was different.
I had to try three times before he finally picked up.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Before hello, before anything else, he was worried. It was nice to know.
“Hey, dad, I, uh… I wanted to talk about the shop.”
“Did something happen?”
“Did mom ever talk about blue flowers?”
Dad got quiet. I just heard his elevated breathing.
“Dad, did she ever talk about blue flowers?” I repeated.
“Y-yeah,” he responded. “Yeah, she… she mentioned them. A few times.”
“What did she say?”
“Well, uh…”
He paused for a few seconds. I could hear him scratching his beard.
“She thought they were some sort of weeds. Said she was gonna get rid of them.”
“Did she?”
“Yeah. I suppose… she did.”
There was a pause. He was clearly thinking of something.
“She thought it was some sort of chemical in the soil. Didn’t like it one bit” he continued. “Are they back?”
“Yeah” I sighed. “Shop’s full of them.”
“Just be careful,” he warned. “I don’t want you to get sick too.”
The next morning, I decided to get rid of them all. I agreed with my mom; it seemed strange. Unnatural, in a way. The color was way too vibrant, and they were just sort of… off. So when I entered that greenhouse, I had every intention of just pulling everything up by the roots and tossing it into a bucket. I grabbed one of the discolored sunflowers and started to pull. The petals started to rattle, and I could feel the stem shake. I let go of it; I’d never noticed a flower doing that. Was it some sort of reaction to the heat of my hand?
I tried again. A steady grip, a slow pull. Again, it rattled. I took a step back, letting it go once again. Maybe it was like in one of those videos I’d seen of an octopus arm moving when exposed to soy sauce.
For a final time, I took a firm grip and just pulled it up. The rattle stopped.
Suddenly, there was this awful smell. This disgusting, gut-wrenching smell. Like an old fish left out in the sun, covered in a chemical trying to disguise itself as a citrus fruit. It was this awful, manufactured, smell.
I dropped the sunflower and stepped back, dry-heaving. I had this strange ache in my fingertips, like something pulling on my nerves. I stood for a solid minute and just tried to catch my breath. All this was from a single sunflower. I had hundreds of plants.
But why hadn’t they reacted when I replanted some of them the night before? Plants can’t consider intent!
And there, on the floor, lay the now dead sunflower. It had instantly shriveled up into this gray, dried-up mess. And the smell still lingered. My hands were shaking. It was as if my body felt like I’d done something far more horrible than just uproot a plant. I felt like I’d murdered something.
I couldn’t bring myself to clear it all out. Not only was it a lot of work, but I was throwing out a lot of money. People loved these things, and they were pretty to look at. And as long as people are happy, what’s the harm? That, and the thought of that smell just… ugh.
So instead of clearing it out, I opened the greenhouses to the public. I put out a sign, doubled the price, and kept the place open for an extra two hours. I figured I could clear the place out while still making some extra money.
Again, an amazing sale. All day long, people were eager to come claim their new flowery friend. Everyone seemed eager to get one. Even John Gaines, the burly man from the gas station. He never as much as smiled, but he was just as eager as the rest of them.
I just let it happen. As my supplier came by with more inventory, I put it all up in my greenhouses. The next day, I was actually relieved to see they’d all turned blue. Blue was where the money was, that’s what people wanted. You could see them in every window, in every shop, in every garden. The blue flowers were everywhere, and they were oh so loved.
I even changed the sign. The shop was turning into the Blue Garden, not the Green Garden. It made sense, in a way. This was the passing of the torch I’d waited for. The Big Blue. Sort of poetic, considering I wanted to be a marine biologist.
Then came the confrontation with Mrs.Morris. You know, the one I started this story with. Where she, unable to get some of our blue flowers, just threw a fit. To me, this was a turning point. Sure, Mrs.Morris was a known grump, but this was beyond her. Vandalizing the store and calling me names? No. That was not normal. And yes, eventually my purple azaleas would turn blue, but that was no excuse for my customers to act like animals.
For the rest of the day, I tip-toed around my customers, ready for another outburst. I did find a few more blues in the back rooms that I could sell off, but about half of all customers didn’t get one that day. Some just left, immediately. Others expressed disappointment. Two other people, like Mrs.Morris, were verbally abusive.
That night, as I was closing up, I slumped down in a chair next to the front door. I was exhausted. And somehow, despite thinking we were out of blue flowers all day, some were still around. It was as if they popped up out of nowhere when I wasn’t looking.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered into the empty room. “Where are you coming from?”
As I sunk my face into my hands, I could hear something. Looking up, I could see a few remaining flowers rattle their petals; almost as if responding.
A second later, they stopped. In unison.
I thought about saying something else. Asking if they could hear me. Asking if they’d hurt my mother.
But honestly, I didn’t dare to ask.
What if they answered?
What would they say?
I started getting paranoid. On early mornings, I could find myself standing outside the shop doors, listening. I had this idea that the flowers had started speaking whenever I wasn’t around, like a delusional nightmare variant of Toy Story. Of course, they didn’t. They were flowers. And yet, I wasn’t buying this “soil imbalance” theory either. Flowers don’t turn blue from that, and they certainly don’t make people violent.
On my way to work, I started seeing them. In windows, in gardens, in storefronts. Sure, I’d had many customers, but some of these flowers weren’t even the types we were selling. The strangest thing I saw was a blue venus flytrap. While many blue flowers had turned a bit smaller than their original, the venus flytrap was the size of a fist. It’d been put in a pot outside a gas station, and I could see the whole thing just swelling with flies. They were climbing over one another, swarming, just to get a chance to push themselves inside the flytrap. I’d never seen anything like it, and I knew for a fact that thing didn’t come from my store.
When I got to my store that morning, it was filled to the brim with pristine blue flowers. Some from pots I hadn’t even used. Some from pots that didn’t even have soil! The store looked brand new, like I’d gotten a mystery shipment overnight. I knew that I could step inside and just drink in the sweet aroma. I longed to feel it, in a way. But every rational part of me knew that this wasn’t normal, and something inside of me was screaming to get away. To run. To get the hell out of town.
So instead, I closed down the Blue Gardens.
I taped up large garbage bags over the windows and added a handmade “closed until further notice” sign on the front door. As I was doing it, I could hear protesting voices across the street. Mrs.Morris was no doubt one of them. Instead of confronting them I just hurried up and left.
“Hey” I could hear as I crossed the street. “What do you think you’re doing?!”
I just kept walking. I could hear something being thrown. Keep walking.
I had six missed calls before I even got home. All unique numbers. As the day went on, I even heard someone bang on my front door. There was yelling, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Someone was driving in circles around the parking lot, honking, while my phone kept ringing.
I hid in the shower. I couldn’t hear anything through the rushing water. No phones ringing, no cars honking, nothing. It was just me and my own thoughts, for a little while. I couldn’t just keep the store closed forever, but I couldn’t live with the strangeness of the blue flowers. And for a moment, I got this sensation washing over me. I could picture my mom, standing in this same shower, faced with this same problem.
What was her solution?
And was it that solution that’d made her sick?
I didn’t eat all day. I curled up in a blanket on my sofa, listening to my phone ring away. Every tone felt like hammer blows on an anvil, trying to shape me into something worrisome. When I finally broke down and reached to turn it off, I couldn’t help but to see a few messages I’d received.
“Open right now”
“Open the doors.”
“Please open.”
“Why are you closed”
And finally, as the sender seemed to grow more impatient, it just said “We’re going in”. But this was sent over 20 minutes ago, and no one had been banging on my door for a while. So I figured they were going into the store. They were breaking in. No matter my feelings for those plants, or the people who wanted them, I couldn’t let them destroy my mother’s shop. It was the Green Gardens! MY Green Gardens!
Except, in a way, it wasn’t.
I couldn’t bring myself to imagine that little store broken into and plundered. I knew every inch of that space, and thinking about it being ruined just broke my heart. I got in my car, called the police, and frantically explained the threats I’d been receiving.
When I finally got there, just after 4pm, it was already too late.
Every window had been broken. Pots and soil and flowers… either knocked over, broken, or stolen. The sign had been vandalized. Now it just said “The Blue”. “Gardens” was shattered into pieces and strewn along the sidewalk. I just stood there until a tap on my shoulder snapped me out of it. I saw a family of crows snacking on sunflower seeds among the shards of glass.
It was a police officer, a man in his early fifties. I’d seen him around, but never really talked to him. He had a kind face.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sure the insurance covers it. You need a minute?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “Yeah, I-I… I do.”
He stood with me quietly for a while and just looked at the mess.
“You’re the daughter, right? Her kid?” he asked.
I nodded. A lot of people had known my mother. She’d broken a lot of hearts.
“She had her accidents too, you know. The whole greenhouse burned down once.”
“It did?” I asked.
“You didn’t know?” he chuckled. “Yeah, yeah, the middle one. It just burned to the ground overnight. She never even claimed damages for it, she just… let it happen.”
That’s what she did. That was her solution.
As he left to fill out a report, that got me thinking. Maybe mom had the same problem, and maybe she solved it with the best way she knew how; to just cleanse it all in fire. But maybe that was what got her sick in the first place. I remember how sick I’d felt after pulling up one of the blue flowers by the root. The stir in my stomach. There was something there, and that was just from a single flower.
I filled out the insurance report, I talked to the officers down at the station. I took the pictures, we put up the tape. And all the while, I made my own plans; I was going to burn it all to the ground. Greenhouses, the store, everything. I loved that place, but I couldn’t imagine it being turned into this breeding ground for something my mother hated.
That night, I returned with a a can of gas. But as I got there, I was surprised to see the broken store swarmed with people. At least a dozen of them, scrounging around, looking for seedlings. Some of them were just shoveling dirt into their mouths. One woman was just sitting on the counter, eating sunflower seeds from a bag with her bare hands. I stepped in through the broken window and called out to them.
“Get out! Now!” I yelled. “I’m not warning you a second time!”
No reaction. Fine.
The second I started pouring out gasoline, they all turned to me. Even a few of the blue flowers that’d sprouted up seemed to rattle in my direction; their dry leaves shivering. But the intruders… their eyes were dark, and dirt dripped from their mouths. They looked like a parody of themselves; bad copies that didn’t quite function as intended.
As John Gaines from the gas station came lumbering towards me with a garden hoe, I instinctively picked up the closest thing to throw at him; a tiny blue sunflower in a pot. I anticipated an attack, but instead he just stopped and looked at me. It was as if he was so afraid to hurt the plant that he just couldn’t keep going. That plant was my camouflage; my shield. I clutched it tight, and poured out the entire can.
It is hard to describe just how much gasoline stinks when it is all out in the open. It can make you choke and gag if you’re not ready for it. I just stepped back, lit my lighter, and called out for a final time.
“Out! Now!”
Then, flames.
There were so many screams. Some human, some not. Some from the people in the store, but others echoed throughout the street. Every house, every garden, every little space with one of the blue flowers; they were all screaming. People came running out of the broken store. Crying. Clutching bags of soil against their chest, choking on the dirt and seeds in their mouths. One man just stumbled out on the pavement, shaking like the rattling petals of the burning flowers.
And there I stood, still clutching a little blue sunflower. My shield. It was all I could do to shield myself from the effect of these plants. I had to keep one alive, to be a custodian. I had to trick them.
And all around me, the world burned. As I heard sirens approaching, I saw the flames reflect in the tears of the desperate bystanders.
It was over.
This was a few years ago. I think what I did differently from my mother was to keep a flower for myself. Sort of like a vaccine, keeping me a tiny bit infected in order to not get too sick all at once. I left that plant behind in an old apartment years ago. I even colored the pot. “The Sad Sunflower” I called it. Because it’s blue, you know? It has to be a bit sad about being by itself. And I figured a single flower wouldn’t hurt anyone.
I had to move out of town. Selling the house got me enough money to go to college, and I’ve since started on a journey to finally get my degree as a marine biologist. Whatever gets me away from the Blue Gardens and into the real Big Blue.
And yeah, it is sad to think that my mom’s favorite place in the world is gone. It feels a bit like losing her all over again. But on the other hand, I don’t think she would’ve liked to see what’d happened to it. After all, she tried to do the same thing.
I hope the Sad Sunflower was just left alone. I hope that chapter of my life is gone.
And I hope my mom can rest easy knowing that the Blue Gardens will never harm anyone, ever again.