the futures that never come Hayley, Grade 11
The morning’ s shimmers trickle down from the icy sky and pool in the garden, their golden hands gently prying open basil leaves as they thread around the stalks of tomato plants, wrapping Mira’ s son in warmth against the November chill. Mira watches her little boy crouch in the dirt with sticky hands, his face scrunched with his mother’ s dimples and his father’ s frown. Grimacing, she reaches forward to plaster another bandage on his knee, adding to the layers standing out against his skin like patchy foundation. She knows he hates the plastic between his skin and the soil, once telling her he felt like his bones were itching and he couldn’ t scratch them, but it has to be done. And in any case, the mess of bandages seems to complete him, a picture of disorderliness with scrapedup knees and Mira’ s staggered stitching securing the pockets onto his shorts. She notes the five crayons her son yanks out of these pockets today: an off-brand orange; the last sliver of an earthy green( a result of too many depictions of questionably large trees); a velvety red one he received in a Valentine, broken in half from the force of his little fingers; plus two Mira suspects he stole from school. She knows he can’ t read the label of any of them— he’ s only five, the word“ periwinkle” means nothing— and besides, the dampness of soil has seeped into the wrapping, causing the paper to warp and peel. The boy selects the shard of green and gets to work sketching his mother’ s wilted flowers, though there isn’ t much green left to colour. She’ s glad her son seems to embrace it, but Mira admits she’ s never been good at keeping flowers alive. She tends to find herself watching helplessly as brown creeps up each petal until her flowers look like burnt, dehydrated onions. Nonetheless, she plants more each spring, averting her eyes from the window while she wipes down the kitchen counters, and hoping, every time she unlatches the gate, that she’ ll step into flourishing petals again.
35