Dried Flowers

    Jon walked home from the grocery store, the brown paper bag heavy in his frail hands. He hardly went out anymore. When he did he studied the empty houses on his street, a ghost of the friendly neighborhood he had known as a young man.

    Jon put the cucumber in the fridge and wondered if it too would grow rotten with neglect. He settled into his recliner and turned on the tv. A game show, mute because the sound made his head hurt. A family was jumping around, hugging each other, they must have won something.

    He had lived in the same house his whole adulthood. Moved out after high school, got a job at the store, cleaning and stocking shelves. He’d come home tired and listen to the radio until he fell asleep. Neighbors came and introduced themselves, invited him to barbeques and house parties. Each time he’d say something like, “I’d love to, but I’m busy with work,” or “Maybe, we’ll see.” Polite denials. Jon had hated social events, he never knew what to do with himself.

    Jon met Henry at work, Henry was a cashier who lived next door. He somehow seemed to know every customer. They’d smile when they saw him, and eagerly update him on the changes (or lack thereof) in their lives.

    Jon would stare at Henry while sweeping the floors and think “That is what I should be”. Henry somehow felt more human than he did, Henry knew himself, he knew how to speak, to smile, to exist as if it was nothing. Jon wished he could hate him for it.

During break, Jon sat out back, by the garbage cans. Henry sat down beside him. He pulled out his cigarettes, put one between his teeth, and then offered the box to Jon. Jon didn't smoke, but he felt it would be awkward if he said no. So he took it, and without a word, he looked at the ground to avoid Henry's eyes. Henry lit his cigarette and turned to light Jon's. Jon looked at the flaming thing in his hand for a long moment before taking a small drag. His throat felt dry, and it took all he could not to cough. 

"You're the guy that moved in next door, right?" Henry asked.

"Yes," Jon said tentatively

"How come I never see you around?"

Jon opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out, so a silence grew between the two.

"Well, Tom and Anna are having a cookout at 7, have you met them yet? I'd be happy to introduce you."

Anna had come to the house the day he moved in to welcome him. But Jon didn't say so.  Instead, he said, "Are you inviting me?"

"Yes."

"And they'd be okay with me coming?"

"Why wouldn't they be?"

Tom cooked meat on the grill, kids ran around in the yard with more energy and excitement than Jon thought humanly possible, and adults sat at the picnic tables talking. Henry introduced Jon to those who didn't know him. Jon felt like a child clinging to his mother's leg. As he clumsily tried to contribute to conversations.

Eventually, they went to the front porch for a smoke break. Jon inhaled and then exhaled in a coughing fit.

"Do you smoke?" Henry asked.

Jon flushed in embarrassment, "No," he admitted.

Henry broke out into a  warm laugh, Jon found himself laughing too.

They fell into a bit of a routine, spending their work breaks together and sitting on porches at parties. Jon grew used to smoking and found it calmed his nerves. He became comfortable with Henry. More so than he'd been with any other. Henry told him of how he wanted to study history but didn't have the money for college, and how he planned to see the whole world. Jon knew the world was very large, he wasn't sure if anyone could see all of it. But when Henry said he would, Jon believed him, because he was Henry.

Henry had a beautiful garden in his backyard. It was the first thing he showed Jon when he invited Jon to his home. He grew vegetables, but nobody would say that's the staple of his garden. Henry grew the most beautiful flowers Jon had ever seen. Brightness around them, a sweet smell in the air.

He had offered to teach Jon to garden. So they sat in the soil together, Jon listening intently as Henry explained how much water and sun each plant needs.

Jon started his own garden. He loved to see life grow from his labor. His world became full of flowers.

The garden was dying. As Jon got old he grew forgetful, and would often forget to water his plants. He had a horrible time trying to weed it, his knees and back ached when he bent down. He'd be in pain for days. Jon knew he should have given up a long time ago. But he was a gardener, to give it up would feel like giving up a part of him.

    Someone was knocking on the door. Jon got out of the recliner, put his robe on, and meandered to answering it. His breath caught in his throat when he opened the door. Because standing there was Henry. So many nights Jon had laid awake thinking of all the things he’d like to say to Henry, but now that he was smiling on his porch, Jon was wordless. Henry wore a paint-stained shirt and cargo shorts, there were wrinkles on his face where there hadn’t been before, yet somehow he looked the same, bright, youthful, and happy. Jon tried to see himself how Henry would: hunched over in a stained bathrobe, he stopped trying, because it saddened him. Henry threw his arms around him, Jon had thought a lot about this too, being able to hug Henry again. But he’d never imagined it like this. He stood stiff in Henry’s arms.

    Henry was moving back into his old home. He hadn’t expected Jon to still be here since so many of his old neighbors had moved. He’d knocked on their doors only to be met by silence or an unfamiliar face. He’d invited Jon over to help him unpack, and then have a cup of tea.

     Henry was strong and spry, he carried large boxes from his car as if it was nothing, and chatted cheerfully the whole time. Again Jon felt wordless. His breath catching in his throat, his bones beginning to ache from all the activity. Henry’s energy was overwhelming, his positivity grating. Jon cursed himself for thinking such negative things about someone he cared so deeply for. All the things he had imagined Henry saying to him for all those years, but now that he was here Jon just wanted him to shut up.

    They sat on the steps like old times, this time sipping tea. Jon suggested they smoke for nostalgia’s sake, and Henry said he quit years ago, for his health, and that Jon ought to as well. He told Jon about his wife who had passed away, and his kids who were out in the world doing great things. He’d traveled just like he said he would. Henry told Jon so many stories, his children doing silly things when they were little, his time living in Japan working on trail maintenance. His life was full, real, and meaningful. When Henry asked Jon what he’d been up to he didn’t know what to say. He’d been here, living the same life Henry left him with, still living it, even when it ran itself into the ground. He worked at the store until retirement. He hadn’t traveled out of the state.

    Henry had a box of seed packets. He asked Jon if he’d help him plant them, but Jon politely declined.

    He’d always thought his home was a part of him, that he’d leave himself behind if he moved. How had Jon not realized that staying here was making him slip away? Smoking always reminded him of Henry. But all this clinging to the past had left Jon blackened and shriveled.

    Jon glanced out his window to Henry’s house. Henry stood in his backyard and stared back. Jon thought Henry’s face looked hateful and judging. An expression so strange on Henry, it was uncanny. Jon waved at Henry, Henry smiled, as if he always had been and waved back. Jon thought he must be imagining things.

    Jon stopped by the next day. The minute he saw Henry’s backyard he knew something strange was going on. The flowers had grown half a foot overnight, they shouldn’t have been able to grow so fast. Henry talked about his wife but Jon was hardly listening, he kept glancing at the flowers, thinking they were about to grow before his eyes.

    Jon had asked Henry why he stopped writing to him. He said he was traveling too much, he did not have an address to receive letters, and he did not see a point in writing if Jon could not write back.

    None of it made sense. Jon had often thought that Henry must have died because that was the only reason he could think for him not writing. This could not be his Henry. Jon had never felt uncomfortable around his Henry, whoever this was kept staring at him.

    Why was it fair that his garden hurt him so much? Jon took care of it and he was in pain, he didn’t and it would die, which hurt him. What did Henry do to deserve a garden that flourished without hurting him? What had Jon done wrong?

    Jon woke from a restless sleep and went to his window. He glanced at Henry’s yard and then stared at it in shock. The flowers were overgrown, they towered over the fence, tall and thick like a jungle. Jon rushed out into the night in his pajamas, barreling towards Henry’s garden. He pushed through the fence door and fell to the ground, soil staining his knees. Jon ripped up the flowers in a frenzy, spaying roots everywhere. He was scared and angry, and he had the right to be. 

    He left the wreck behind him and went back home, getting in bed still covered in soil. His sheets because filthy, but he hardly registered it.

    Jon saw the flowers again the next day, tauntingly the same. Six inches tall, not a jungle, not ripped up from their roots. Again he barged into Henry’s backyard. Henry heard the crash of the gate and came out of the house to see what the sound was. He painted a smile onto his face when he saw it was Jon.

    “I didn’t know you were coming over, I would’ve-” 

    Jon grabbed a shovel leaning against the house and swung at Henry, hitting him on the head. Henry staggered back, his face full of shock. Jon lunged at him like a more ferocious beast than he normally was, pinning Henry to the ground. He wrapped his hands around Henry’s throat, feeling neck bones crack beneath them. It was cruel that the thing that was not Henry wore his face. It was such a terrible face, pained and disbelieving. Soon he stopped thrashing and lay still in the grass. The thing that was not Henry had Henry’s body, and it was such a fragile thing, twisted in unnatural ways. Jon couldn’t help feeling like he’d killed his friend. He gently rearranged Henry’s limbs and laid down beside him.

"Do you remember when we used to sit out here and stargaze?" Jon asked the air and was answered by a predictable silence. He looked up at the sky. The only star out was the sun. It shined too bright and hurt his eyes. Jon gazed at it anyways and began to cry.