I work in a flower store near the market square where metros, trams and buses intersect, a place where encounters are not necessarily odd, but I mean, folks here who come to buy flowers often throw me into a pond of strange water, leaving me in shock at first, then I’m gasping and speechless, floating with endless streams of thoughts.
In quiet hours, I would stare at the flowers. I take one, hold it for a while, and put it back to the vase. Actually, I’m desperate. I mean, they are dying, minute after minute, standing in still water, waiting to be bought and cheer someone up. Really? While having this unsettling thoughts, they hypnotise me. Their silence fill the air, and I eventually calm down.
The flower selection here is exclusive, you can find rare beauties if you ask. Once we got a giant banana flower. Oh, it does look like a great purple banana flower; but all I could thinking of is sex. Ah, and those big anthurium we got for Valentine’s week, it just makes you wonder, how come, this lustful organism? Actually, they are all just way too cool, and humans aren’t like that, and that’s why we can only romanticise things.
It’s very hard to believe, but one can really grow dislike towards a type of flower. I remembered when the shop just opened, the owner, Chan, almost hated carnations, she says it’s because the rotten stems of it smell like devil’s mouth, sucking away all the nicest scent related memories you own. She warns me to wear a mask when cleaning the vase, in case mine is stolen. Some days when I’m alone in the shop, I try to smell old carnations. She’s right, the rotten smell gives no joy. But what can you expect? Things decay, even the teeth, but we keep eating and drinking.
I do like carnations, and even the old ones. I’m not the fancy kind who came in looking for bird of paradise.
In fact, I like almost all flowers. Chan found out about this, and she got really concerned. “You need to have preference”, one day she said, “I know they are beautiful, but you get to learn how to despise some beautiful things”. I listened and kept washing dirty vases with that old, big toilet brush. That’s a sharp saying, I thought. Doesn’t it hurt her while saying it?
She is absurdly unpredictable and mysterious. Like, she’s Asian, but she doesn’t mention a thing about the beauty of orchid or peonies while people here are crazy about them. She doesn’t order those easy-to-sell regulars like lilies and roses, but some unbelievably pricey exotics that no one here have seen or will ask for. As a consequence, I have to turn off a few lily and rose customers occasionally.
Once there comes a man asking for lilies. I apologised for not having them and thought he would go to another shop like most other customers. “I would like to give flowers to my artistic friend, if you can make me something nice? No carnations, please.” He kindly accepted my suggestion and ended with a white ornithogalum bouquet. He waited there, uncomfortably. He looked nervous and serious, but he wears casually, so casual that I started to worry the flowers might have gone over his budget. “Can I pay and come back to pick it up in 15 mins?”, he said, “I will visit the S-market meanwhile”. “Of course, 68 euros please.” I reply. He left, backpack on one shoulder. He is rather short, wearing glasses and avoid direct eye contact. You can’t say he’s a loser, but can’t say he’s a winner in his 60s either from his appearance. Somehow, his eyes case a lonely shadow on the space, and I can’t stop imagine
the moment when this bunch of beauty I’m tying is turned away by the receiver. How can I be so sure he’s having a one-sided love for his artistic friend?
He came back with a bag of grocery, said thank you in an almost faintly way, and left.
After that day, he kept coming back, and every time he would ask for lilies for his artistic friend.He never got the lilies he wanted, but he bought big bouquets with many stems of the same flower for his artistic friend.
His friend must be so loved, I thought; but he looked gloomy. Little by little, I think somewhere inside me, there grows gloomy seeds when I think about lilies, and especially when I see white lilies.
The tight buds of white lilium (Watch Up, or White Heaven variation) are simple in shape; the green tip looks just so hopeful. Once I encountered an ikebana work made solely with white lily buds, it was satisfying to look at that moment, but I was so eager to see the future moment of blossom, that my body start to itch everywhere. Only recently, I learned that in ikebana, blossoms actually symbolise the past, while buds symbolise the future. Looking
back to that moment, I was actually with the future while longing for the future. A fool.
The moment those green buds bloom, it all of a sudden becomes complicated. First of all, the peddles will become wrinkly and bruised if press or bended or in contact with dirty water; if you want to keep its pure whiteness, anthers have to be removed from the stamens, so that the bright orange pollen won’t distain the white. Most flower stores do that before selling the lilies to customers.
No distain. Purity.
I often wonder about the anthers; they dye anything that touches, like it or not. It won’t let you wash them away; a bit like some painful memories. It stays even it dilute in time.
I thought of the green, tight lily buds when I think of purity, and I secretly wish they will
forever stay like that.
In quiet hours, I would stare at the flowers. I take one, hold it for a while, and put it back to the vase. Actually, I’m desperate. I mean, they are dying, minute after minute, standing in still water, waiting to be bought and cheer someone up. Really? While having this unsettling thoughts, they hypnotise me. Their silence fill the air, and I eventually calm down.
The flower selection here is exclusive, you can find rare beauties if you ask. Once we got a giant banana flower. Oh, it does look like a great purple banana flower; but all I could thinking of is sex. Ah, and those big anthurium we got for Valentine’s week, it just makes you wonder, how come, this lustful organism? Actually, they are all just way too cool, and humans aren’t like that, and that’s why we can only romanticise things.
It’s very hard to believe, but one can really grow dislike towards a type of flower. I remembered when the shop just opened, the owner, Chan, almost hated carnations, she says it’s because the rotten stems of it smell like devil’s mouth, sucking away all the nicest scent related memories you own. She warns me to wear a mask when cleaning the vase, in case mine is stolen. Some days when I’m alone in the shop, I try to smell old carnations. She’s right, the rotten smell gives no joy. But what can you expect? Things decay, even the teeth, but we keep eating and drinking.
I do like carnations, and even the old ones. I’m not the fancy kind who came in looking for bird of paradise.
In fact, I like almost all flowers. Chan found out about this, and she got really concerned. “You need to have preference”, one day she said, “I know they are beautiful, but you get to learn how to despise some beautiful things”. I listened and kept washing dirty vases with that old, big toilet brush. That’s a sharp saying, I thought. Doesn’t it hurt her while saying it?
She is absurdly unpredictable and mysterious. Like, she’s Asian, but she doesn’t mention a thing about the beauty of orchid or peonies while people here are crazy about them. She doesn’t order those easy-to-sell regulars like lilies and roses, but some unbelievably pricey exotics that no one here have seen or will ask for. As a consequence, I have to turn off a few lily and rose customers occasionally.
Once there comes a man asking for lilies. I apologised for not having them and thought he would go to another shop like most other customers. “I would like to give flowers to my artistic friend, if you can make me something nice? No carnations, please.” He kindly accepted my suggestion and ended with a white ornithogalum bouquet. He waited there, uncomfortably. He looked nervous and serious, but he wears casually, so casual that I started to worry the flowers might have gone over his budget. “Can I pay and come back to pick it up in 15 mins?”, he said, “I will visit the S-market meanwhile”. “Of course, 68 euros please.” I reply. He left, backpack on one shoulder. He is rather short, wearing glasses and avoid direct eye contact. You can’t say he’s a loser, but can’t say he’s a winner in his 60s either from his appearance. Somehow, his eyes case a lonely shadow on the space, and I can’t stop imagine
the moment when this bunch of beauty I’m tying is turned away by the receiver. How can I be so sure he’s having a one-sided love for his artistic friend?
He came back with a bag of grocery, said thank you in an almost faintly way, and left.
After that day, he kept coming back, and every time he would ask for lilies for his artistic friend.He never got the lilies he wanted, but he bought big bouquets with many stems of the same flower for his artistic friend.
His friend must be so loved, I thought; but he looked gloomy. Little by little, I think somewhere inside me, there grows gloomy seeds when I think about lilies, and especially when I see white lilies.
The tight buds of white lilium (Watch Up, or White Heaven variation) are simple in shape; the green tip looks just so hopeful. Once I encountered an ikebana work made solely with white lily buds, it was satisfying to look at that moment, but I was so eager to see the future moment of blossom, that my body start to itch everywhere. Only recently, I learned that in ikebana, blossoms actually symbolise the past, while buds symbolise the future. Looking
back to that moment, I was actually with the future while longing for the future. A fool.
The moment those green buds bloom, it all of a sudden becomes complicated. First of all, the peddles will become wrinkly and bruised if press or bended or in contact with dirty water; if you want to keep its pure whiteness, anthers have to be removed from the stamens, so that the bright orange pollen won’t distain the white. Most flower stores do that before selling the lilies to customers.
No distain. Purity.
I often wonder about the anthers; they dye anything that touches, like it or not. It won’t let you wash them away; a bit like some painful memories. It stays even it dilute in time.
I thought of the green, tight lily buds when I think of purity, and I secretly wish they will
forever stay like that.