The flowers; the flowers were everywhere, as many as their were drops of misty rain everywhere in the meadow, as the green smelling things filled me and birds sang gently in the surrounding trees… I felt like I would burst. It was so much. I put down my notebook on my skirts and stared, from my seat on the stone in the middle of the meadow south of the greenhouse. My auburn hair rustled a little in spite of the rain that dewed there, the reeds swayed in the wind… I felt like I was crying, but I knew I wasn't. My chest filled with the cold, misty air, and my eyes drank in the bluing green things, filled and covered and bursting with the flowers; the flowers… the flowers were everywhere.
I opened my eyes, and looked into the eyes of Athens, who was stooping over my drenched body, dress covered in rain stains and body surrounded by the flattened flowers I'd laid on, oh, oh the flowers…
"*****, are you- uh," Athens looked like he didn't know whether to laugh or be concerned.
I breathed in again… The flowers… I sat up with difficulty. "Ah- um, well hello Athens."
"Your notebook is a little wet."
"I have a copy," I said gruffly, looking around at it, still on the stone where I'd been sitting before. I uselessly brushed the front of my dress. It'd come out in the wash, I decided. Like the dress itself, it was worth the effort.
"They're looking for you, you know."
The birdsong shimmered in the sun, as his dark fluffy hair glowed before the sun over our heads. The green things blew about in the gentle breeze after the rain. I felt drunk, a bit. My hands supported me, wrist deep in the flowers…
"You won't tell them where I am, will you?"
He looked at me, my silly odd dress and pitiful face drawing a wrinkle of a smile from him. I didn't kick myself anymore, though. I finally knew who I was.
"No," he said, plopping down nearby. He threw his long strong arms about his knees and looked around. "This is a lovely place."
I looked where he was looking.
"You have a… very beautiful mind," he said. I supposed he wasn't wrong.
"Now, anyway."
"Yes- It was horrible before. So dark. It- It was like you were trying to drown yourself." He dusted his shoe with a flick of his arm a few times. He said, "it must feel beautiful."
I looked at him.
A gust of cool wind blew from the north, and it blew my hair around and goosebumps flew across my bare arms -- he looked over at me as the sun blasted from the sky through the clouds, hurling everything around us into a halo of dewy light and color, green, sweet smelling grasses, birdsong soaring and swelling into a searing crescendo, and I felt so full I felt like crying again… And the flowers; the flowers were everywhere… Everywhere, everywhere…
My eyes filled with the rain… And gentle, beautiful clouds gathered in the sky; the sun's rays blew through them and lit from above the misty rain, gathering… gathering and falling down, down, down, down my cheeks and into the meadow where we sat, and where I was crying with beauty and peace and a fullness I'd never felt before swelled into the birdsong, throwing and hurling the wiand around us, throwing the folds of my dress and hair and soul around and tossing me, and the green things around our ankles grew, and grew. And I felt my sides hurt and head pound with the crying, and the singing, and the rejoicing, and all and all and all the flowers! All of the flowers, all around.
I fell back with the happy crying. I spread out my arms, feeling the reeds and grasses and dew and birdsong, and flowers; oh, the flowers.