My mama used to say that dead flowers were prettier than living ones. She was always fond of hanging the flower bouquets that my dad gave her and letting them dry out over the course of a few days or sometimes, she would press them in the books she was reading, among the pages she stopped on– like nature’s very own bookmarks. Oftentimes, she would forget to finish a book and the pressed flowers stayed there until the next reader found almost crushed remnants of a dandelion that once lived. There was something quite beautiful about knowing there were hidden flowers in the most unlikely places around the house.
Eventually, Eric and I grew into the love for dead flowers. They lasted longer and they reminded us that death wasn’t always ugly. And it kept on reminding us, even after our mother passed away. She fought long and hard, even when the cancer proved to be restless. We visited her every day in the hospital, usually accompanied by bouquets of dead roses and stories of our days. Beyond the laughter and tears, she would complain how the hospital food was almost as gross as the diner meatloaf from across the street. I miss her everyday and though I can’t keep her in a pretty book, I could hang onto the petals that were left. Eric took it the hardest. My mother was his haven, especially when things with our dad had taken a turn for the worst. After she passed, he seemed to channel all of his energy into creating art. It started off as weird splattered paintings which were made as a result from his throwing-things phase. Then, it turned into copies of famous paintings; I think it served as a means to practice his craft while also having an excuse to listen to loud music and sip on cognac in solitude. Now, he’s quite skilled in it and does original pieces that hang in galleries across the five boroughs. He gifted me one of his paintings: A Ruby’s Bloodline. Drawn on the canvas was a piece composed mainly of oil paint; an anatomical heart made of ruby stones with vines peeking from the valves. He even went as far as scattering a few pieces of actual ruby gems throughout the painting. It was a breath-taking sentiment, but one that I stored in my hallway closet the minute I got home. It had nothing to do with my liking of it and everything to do with the feeling that rose in my body the minute I laid eyes on it. By all accounts, it was a beautiful painting with colors so vibrant that it would not be hard to imagine that he sculpted the gems from his own heart– yet, there was something wrong with the way the rough, dried oil met my skin as I brushed my fingers across the strokes of greens and reds. Nonetheless, I was proud of him for finding a way to cope with the abundance of grief we both felt. I, on the other hand, moved on quite easily. I felt guilty for making my peace with it so quickly, and yet, it did not take away from the fact that I still missed her dearly. Everyone grieves in different ways– at different paces– and I can only hope that the world does not see chaos and emotionless hearts in us where there is grief. The sun had just set when I was alarmed by a harsh knock on the door. With shaky hands, I lifted the rusted gold latch on the peephole of the apartment door and found my brother caked in snow from the cold New York winter. “Next time, could you be a little less gentler with my door? I don’t need Sherry to find another excuse to raise my rent.” Sherry was my landlord and a Class-A asshole. I wasn’t expecting Eric to stop by, but he had a way of always surprising me. “Sorry, I’m a bit worked up right now.” Eric said as he started putting his wet clothes into the hamper. “What’s going on?” My husband asked with concern as he walked into the room with a mug of his hot herbal tea. “Those good-for-nothing losers are at it again. It’s getting harder and harder to find openings for decent galleries.” Those good-for-nothing losers Eric was referring to, were people that seemed to use artificial intelligence to create “art” from a list of prompts fed into the computer. These so-called “artists”, in Eric’s opinion, found the easy way out instead of taking time to develop the skill required to actually do it properly. “I got one opening on Friday at the gallery next to that coffee shop you guys really like. They’re a gallery very adamant about not accepting AI submissions.” He continued. “That sounds great! So, what’s with all the anger in your eyes?” I asked cautiously. “It just still makes me so mad. Until every one of those jerks stop using that god awful software, I will be walking around like the Grinch.” He sighed and rubbed his eyes, exhaustedly. “Plus, it doesn’t help that one of the pieces I saw at a different gallery was a clear revision of one of the digital paintings I put up on my online portfolio.” I felt bad for him. I couldn’t imagine my job being taken over by literal robots, but there wasn’t much else any one of us could do. You can’t get rid of pestering ants on your picnic blanket, especially when you’re so close to the grass. To lighten the mood, my husband started to cook us some sirloin steaks and loaded mashed potatoes for dinner. It was Eric’s favorite meal and my close second. “So when is the show?” My husband asked. “Friday at 7. You guys are going to be there, right?” He darted his eyes between us. “I might have to move some things around, but we wouldn’t miss it for the world.” My husband nodded in agreement. The night slowed down from that moment on. We ate, we drank, and we laughed the way that you do when you blind yourself from all the stress and horror of the real world. When it was time to say our goodbyes, I slung Eric’s coat off his shoulders. I could smell the fresh lavender detergent that was seeped into the threads of the fabric. Then, as he leaned in for a hug, I swear I could smell the faint scent of iron. I chalked it up to the jewelry we were wearing. My brother walked out the door and down the hallway. We waved and when he turned to wave back, I was almost sure that he didn’t look so restless anymore. Wednesday rolled around. It was uneventful, except for the massive amount of flowers that were gifted to me in the early hours of the morning. “My friends and I went to a local garden where you could pick your own bouquets of flowers and I knew how much you like to dry your own.” My coworker, Annabeth, said as she handed me a bundle mixed with baby-breath, lavender, sunflowers, and tulips. She was the kindest soul I could have ever had the pleasure of meeting. “Annabeth, I don’t even know how to thank you.” Gratitude overwhelmed me. Living in New York meant that we lived on the top floor of a tiny apartment that barely had any outdoor balcony room for a couple of foldable chairs, let alone a garden. Buying flowers from the local shops got pretty expensive, so I stuck to drying flowers that were gifted to me or ones that were plucked whenever I went out of state. Either way, if I had the freedom to buy as many flowers as I wanted, our fifth floor apartment would have looked like the floral department at Home Depot. As much as I wanted to keep the flowers, my mind circled back to how stressed Eric was a couple nights back. In some ways, I felt guilty that the world had started to rid him of the only part of his life he had control over. Maybe it was me over-compensating for someone else’s mistakes, but regardless, everyone needs flowers sometimes. I strolled down Main Street with the bouquet in my hand while love-starved teenagers gushed over the thought of someone getting them flowers as well. I finally stopped in front of the building that housed Eric’s studio. It was a small run down corner of the world with red bricks chipped and discolored like teeth. I pulled the scratched glass doors open and stepped into the lobby whose only real decoration was water damage seeping to every corner of the ceiling. Luckily, his room was only a couple of floors up. Knock, knock. Ten seconds. Thirty Seconds. One minute. Two minutes. Knock, knock. Then, distant shuffling. “Coming.” He finally called over. A few more seconds passed before he cracked the door open and peaked his head out. “Hey,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting you.” “Yeah, I know. I just wanted to drop these off for you.” I reached out my hands with the flowers in it. “I figured you needed some color in your life.” His eyes scanned down to look at the petals before him. A grin appeared, but it was one that I couldn’t quite place in a specific emotion. Surprise? Relief? Anger? “Wow, Elle. That’s really thoughtful.” He gripped the stems and pressed the sunflower to his nose. My mouth began to water. The walk here had left me a bit parched and I didn’t realize until after we stood there for a few moments of unwanted silence. “Ah, no biggie.” I waved my hand. “But, can I come in and grab a glass of water? I’m kind of thirsty.” He looked at me with eyes that were going to widen but then quickly softened before he could react. One breath, two breaths, thr-- “Um, not right now. Water isn’t working in the studio right now and I’m renovating so it’s a big mess. Something about the pipes.” He kept the door only slightly open. “Not even a bottle or like glass you’re drinking from? Come on, I know how messy you get.” Turning his head, he scanned the room behind him very quickly before replying, “No. Nothing. Sorry, maybe another time.” I guess that was my cue to leave. “Alright, then. Well, I’m gonna get going. I’ll see you Friday.” I smiled and in the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a shiny gold piece of metal. I looked down to see a bracelet bundled up on the floor next to his feet. “It looks like you dropped something. I’ll get it.” I exclaimed. The object was only an arm’s reach away from the door. I bent down and my fingers grazed the chain before his hand snatched it from the floor. From what I could see, it had a Saturn and stars charm towards the end of the chain. It almost looked like it could’ve been modeled after the solar system. “What is that?” I asked. He was never one to wear gold jewelry. Silver suited him best. “Oh. It’s a friend’s. She left it here by accident.” A girlfriend, perhaps? We never talked much about his personal life, so this came as a shock to me. “Ah, I see. Well…I’ll leave you to it.” I left. I didn’t want to make such a big deal out of this revelation, lest it drives him away. Maybe it really belonged to just a friend or maybe there were just parts of his life that I was always going to question. Thursday was normal. I woke up, went to work, came home and watched the news. There was a story about a missing 25 year-old woman who went missing just a few blocks from here. Poor girl. Her dad owned a planetarium a few miles from here, so they decided to dedicate a piece of it in her honor. There is too much horror in this world and yet, at the end of the day, we all sleep peacefully. It was finally Friday evening. I stopped by the bodega to buy a bottle of the most expensive wine I could afford (which unfortunately, did not cost much). I picked up my husband from our apartment and we made our way to the gallery. We got there half an hour before the big opening, so we decided to grab a cup of coffee from our favorite coffee shop next door. I ordered my trusty almond milk latte and he ordered his green tea; we both shared a croissant. “Are you nervous?” He asked. “Little a bit,” I admitted. “What if it’s bad?” “Sugar-coat it.” “No, I don’t think I have the ability to do that either. Maybe I’ll gouge my eyes out and people will be so distracted by the horror that I won’t have to even comment on the art..” I laughed. He laughed. It almost calmed my nerves. Seven p.m rolled around and we stopped ourselves in front of the doorway. Veins and All, the title above us read. I took a deep breath and walked in. Inside, the gallery wasn’t filled with too many people. It was only the beginning of the show and earlier in the week Eric assured us that his speech would happen half an hour later, so he could give people enough time to flood in. We started at the beginning, seeing everything from paintings influenced by the Greats to pieces that needed a little bit more explaining. One of my favorites was a piece painted on canvas. It was inspired by Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam: two fingers almost touching in the center of a canvas, but in this version, a red string is attached to both index fingers. “There is an Asian myth that two people are tied together through a red string.” Eric startled me. “They say that the string can tangle, bend, and expand, but it can never be broken.” I looked at the painting and the red string tied to each finger. “Like soulmates.” My husband said while looking at me. “Exactly.” Then, Eric led us to a different portion of the exhibit. A piece created entirely out of red strings, but these were thinner and a lot more jumbled. It was titled, A Familial Bond. He explained it was a family tree, connecting each person by strings and when you finally took a step back, you could see the form of a person. It was a kind of eerie sight, but I quickly shook it off. “You know, now I get why you named your collection Veins and All. They all kind of look like veins that are pumping blood.” I said to Eric. I hadn’t thought much of it until we stepped in front of this painting. It almost looked like a human with the skin and organs excluded. “Glad to hear it. Let me take you to my favorite.” He grinned. My husband had wandered off at this point, stuck on the sculpture of a willow tree with thicker, jumbled red strings. Eric led me to a singular wall in the middle of the exhibit. A wall of pressed flowers with pressed stems attached. The same ones that I gifted him just two days before. “Woah.” I inched closer. Examining the intricately placed stems and petals. It was so pretty and yet, my words got stuck in the deeper parts of my mind. Then, that’s when he took me to the other side of the wall. I swear it was a mirrored image of the one we just saw, but the stems looked different– thinner, more delicate. They weren’t green or even the brown color they turned into when they dried. It was faint hues of reds, blues and purples. They were fragile looking and I felt like a breath would break them. “How did you get them that color?” I was curious. “He took a sharp intake of breath. “That’s the beautiful thing about resin and color dye. You could preserve a piece of something and make it pretty forever as well. I hope you stay for my speech.” He walked away. My eyes never left the flowers. I was hypnotized by the sight, but I knew it wasn’t in fascination. It was something else. Something crawled in my skin and was trying to let itself out. “Hello, everyone!” Eric exclaimed from the podium at the back of the room. “Thank you for coming to support me and my art.” Everyone turned to face him and cheered him on from every corner of the room. “Lately, these AI jerks have really been harming the community that I developed my skill in and as much as I’d like to scream at them, I can’t today. They are the inspiration behind the exhibit before you today.” He continued, “Art is human. Art cannot be generated by a computer because then it would have no meaning. It means human expression, human connection, and human grief. So please, enjoy what you are seeing today; it is the most human thing I have ever made.” Human. Veins. Human veins. “You know,” He came up behind me, “Not all veins are the same looking. Some are very thick and jumbled, most commonly called veins.” The willow tree. “Others are very thin and spider-like, also known as spider veins.” The family tree. “But normal veins, I’ve found, look a lot like flower stems— branching out in every which way. They connect to the heart like stems connect to the buds of flowers; each serving a purpose for the greater good.” I could feel my croissant rising up, about to spew out of me like a waterfall. “What did you do?” I asked, nearly about to faint. “I showed everyone that sometimes, you need to pour your —or someone else’s all– in order for them to get the point. Momma always used to dry flowers and part of me wished I could have dried her stems to keep her here forever.” He looked down. “But I guess someone else’s stems will do.”
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