The Cerebral Catalyst

I am a plant. I was not always like this. I used to be a boy. Mrs. Daily's husband is a vegetable but I am a plant. When I was twelve-years-old the boy began to die. The boy was just a shell for what was growing inside. I saw her and she saw me and a black seed pod that had been dormant in the boy's lungs began to sprout. As it grew out from the lungs like they were two pink, mucous membrane flower pots the boy withered away from the outside. I am a plant now and there are no plants on the moon. The moon is dry and barren and dead.

I met Sheila before I became a plant but after the boy began to die. She was the last chance the boy ever had at survival. But she killed him. He died because of her, but that's okay - she didn't know. Sheila couldn't have known. It's not her fault.

I was colorblind as a boy. I lived in a world of black and white but it didn't bother me because I didn't know any better. When you've never seen color you don't miss it until you've had it and it's been taken away from you forever. There was a pink sign that hung outside the Daily's Floral Shop, but I never knew that it was pink until that day. The day I met Sheila.

Sheila worked the cash register for her mother while Mrs. Daily primped and puffed the colorful flowers in the back. I don't remember why or how I wandered into the shop. I never had anyone to buy flowers for. Maybe I could smell her from inside. I think I could smell Sheila like a misty field of purple Forget-me-nots.

When I walked through the glass door I didn't see her right away. I was too busy following my nose around the place, sniffing and huffing. I had never seen color but I sure could smell it. Then I looked up and saw what had lured me into the floral shop to begin with. I can still smell her. And when my eyes came up to Sheila's face I froze like a stone statue, because with one brisk snap my whole world changed, and I could see colors everywhere. It felt like seeing God in a barrage of light and sound. Imagine living your whole life in black and white and suddenly having a rainbow slapping you across the face. I saw every color in those flowers, and I watched their scents drift away from them like tie-dyed haze. My favorite was pink. Sheila was pink and I loved her. I wanted to tell her this but my lips wouldn't move. A statue can't talk. My leg hovered bent in the air and two gangly arms hung at my sides, frozen in time and space. I was nothing like an Athenian god or a bronze work of art: just a worthless, broken figure.

Sheila said, "Mom come here quick! Hurry up! Hurry up!"

I saw Mrs. Daily bloom from behind a red curtain. "What is it Sheila?"

"What's wrong with this kid?" Sheila looked at her mother's shocked face. "He's been like that for like five minutes. He hasn't moved and it's really creeping me out."

"Look at him," Mrs. Daily said in disbelief. "Can he hear us?" She waved a hand back and forth in front of my eyes. "Are you all right?"

"Stop it, Mom. He can't hear you."

But I could hear them; I just couldn't move. Everything in my mind worked fine, but when I tried to send impulses from my brain through my nerves to my muscles they just weren't firing. I tried so hard to break free. In my mind I was screaming, I love you Sheila! I just met you but I'm in love with you. But I knew no words were coming from my mouth. I wasn't making any sounds but I could see in her eyes that she was listening.

Sheila said, "Look at his eyes."

Mrs. Daily said, "Why, what's wrong with them?"

Sheila said, "Nothing, but look at them. They look so—"

I could see her eyes. Deep, brown eyes like polished amber. They seemed to gather and reflect the sunlight back into my eyes like some kind of passionate signal. I loved those eyes, but I couldn't tell her how much. I wanted to so bad, but I just couldn't do it. All because I couldn't move and now I was starting to get scared. Am I going to stay like this forever? Am I dead? Did I turn into stone because I looked into the most beautiful eyes under God? Is she the anti-Medusa?

Mrs. Daily said, "We can't just leave him like this."

Sheila said, "Should we put him out in the backyard next to the birdbath?"

And Mrs. Daily said, "Hush up, Sheila. We need to call a doctor."

"I'll get the phone." Sheila faded away behind the red, wavy curtain and into the back room.

When she was gone I felt my heart beat first, then cold red blood squirted from those valves, and there was a sensation like pins and needles all over me. When I could move I could scream. And when I screamed Mrs. Daily jumped. I said, "Stop! Please, don't call anyone. I'm okay. I'm okay. Really, I'm fine."

Sheila was still in the back somewhere. Mrs. Daily held a hand over her chest, taking deep breaths. She said, "What on earth happened to you?"

I said, "I can't believe it. So this is what color looks like. It's beautiful."

She said, "You didn't move for fifteen minutes. Not a muscle."

I said, "I think it's your daughter."

Sheila burst back into the flower room, holding a cordless phone in her hand. Mrs. Daily looked at me and then at Sheila. She said, "What do you mean, you think it's my daughter?" Sheila's eyes were even brighter now than before and I never wanted to look away from them. Mrs. Daily, on the other hand—

Sheila said, "What are you talking about Mom? I got the phone. Are we gonna call someone or what?" Sheila still hadn't seen me. I waved and caught her attention. "Oh, holy smokes! He's alive!"

There were her eyes, right in front of me and I was so close to telling her I loved them. The chance of a lifetime tried to pry my lips open with a crowbar but I kept it out. I kept it out. I did. It's really not her fault. It's mine. I killed the boy. I did.

Sheila's eyes said, If you ask me, I'll say yes.

My eyes disappeared into hers and whispered, I can't. I'm trying so hard but I can't do it. I can't. I can't. I can't.

I wanted Sheila to say something first, but she never said anything. So I said, "This is a really nice place you have here." It's all I could say. It sounded horrible. Sounded like a wet frog jumping out of my mouth.
Then Sheila said, "So, does that mean you want to buy something then?"

I said, "I don't have any money."

Sheila said, "Oh, sorry then. I can't help you." She turned around and disappeared back behind the curtain again. She was going put the phone away, I guess. I felt the seed move inside me. I felt it growing, and I wanted it out because I knew it would take over.

When Sheila went into the back it was just Mrs. Daily and me in the front. The colors were not so vivid without her in the room. It seemed like a pair of dark sunglasses had reached over my eyelids. I didn't know what to say to her mother, because I don't ever know what to say to anyone. Mrs. Daily walked behind the counter to the cash register. I knew she was afraid to talk to me - just as I was afraid to talk to her - but for different reasons. Then she said something. Mrs. Daily is a saint and I didn't know it at the time but I soon found out later and I understood why without question or doubt.

"So," she said, tapping her foot somewhere back there behind the counter, "you like my daughter, ah?" She smiled and laughed to herself a little bit, shaking her head. "Well who am I to judge, right?"

I looked down at my feet, my black sneakers.

She said, "I'll tell you what sweetie - what is your name anyhow?"

I said, "Ricky."

"Tell you what, Ricky. Go ahead and pick out any flower you want in the store, any one at all. When you find one you like, go out through this door and around to the back of the building. She'll be out in the yard back there. And you can surprise her with a flower." She pointed at the tables of flowers with her chin. I looked all around me at the fading colors of the flowers. She said, "I'll give you a hint - she likes pink."

I found a pink flower and it made my hands shake when I held it. My legs got weak - there couldn't have been any blood left in them now - and my lungs were shrinking, trying to squeeze out the air. I never knew what it felt like to be given a second chance. I've never felt like this before. I smiled and nodded back to Mrs. Daily, opened the glass door and stepped out into Moon Creek. The sidewalk and street was gray like before and cratered with potholes. I noticed everything was turning gray. The colors were bleeding out from everywhere and leaving behind them an empty gray. The last color I ever saw was the red neon sign hanging from Alder's Liquor Store across the street.

I hung my head down from my shoulders and sighed. I had lost it. It was growing inside me, taking control over me. But maybe, just maybe I had one more chance. I looked at the gray flower that was once beautiful and pink, wilting in my hands. It was dead. Just by touching it I killed it. Just like how I killed the boy. The pink flower fell from my hands, and it floated for only a second like a feather falling from the sky, before it landed gently on the cracked sidewalk below. As I walked along the brick wall of the building, and passed the wooden gate to the backyard, I could hear fading laughter and the sound of birds.

______________________________________
posted 09.20.04.

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