LUANNE CASTLE: When the daffodil doesn’t fit the scene

Flash Fiction by Luanne Castle 

Who is That Mysterious Flautist?

after Remedios Varo’s “The Flautist”

A crow landed on my mother’s chair at breakfast, causing her to roll her eyes and slump over dead. Rather than call 911, I decided to cement her into the ground in the weedy area behind the dead tree. You see, people have complained to me about her ways since I was a tyke, so I didn’t want to bother anyone with her body. I stayed on in the house, but when the first tax bill came due, I had to sell the lace wedding gown I had never worn. Mother used to warn me about the dangers of buying a dress before I had found a husband. The despair I felt I tossed onto my mother’s grave, where framework materialized. Over the years, I’ve ditched all my problems back there, where they have grown into a tower. You could say that the building is literally made of anxiety, fear, and a touch of shame. As long as the edifice, festooned with cobwebs and featuring a forbidding quantity of steps too tiny for my feet, remains intact, I am safe from these emotions. Mother has done a fantastic job serving as its foundation. I have kept an eye out for troubles, knowing I have a place for them. I am fine as long as I get them out to my citadel fast enough. A black cat crossing my path? Carry it to the tower. A ladder in my way? Off it goes to the tower. I stay alert and faithful to my trusty fortress.

But the other day, I heard a haunting sound and looked out. A person leaned against the dead tree, playing a flute. The music pierced the puce sky at dusk, vibrating the tower’s stone-like bricks. “Stop, stop!” I called out to them, but they didn’t look my way. The sound of the flute was louder and more robust than my voice. I ran outside and saw that the music had dislodged some stones. A block of pain lay at my feet. Another of disgust was just ahead. As a stone flew through the air, I moved quickly to avoid being hit. I ran toward the flautist. “Who are you?” I demanded. “Stop playing! You’re ruining my powerful tower, the keep of chaos.” They gave their name quickly and began to play once again. But what was said was the beginning of the end. I tried to sleep that night, but the playing went on and on, and even through the clear notes, I could hear the final stones of the tower tumbling down. I don’t know where the flautist Guilt came from, but they wouldn’t stop until they had uncovered Mother and ruined me.

When the Daffodil Doesn’t Fit the Scene

after Remedios Varo’s “The Walls” (Les Murés)

This unnatural daffodil plant blossoms guided only by the bulb’s hippocampus, although it sucks with greed the second-hand water shed by my umbrella. The cheerful, and therefore jarring, presence is here for a reason. While it’s difficult to admit, I also have purpose. I once lived here.

Within these walls, I scurried from corner to corner, a mouse of a girl, trying to avoid the scornful glances and the snap of Sister Josepha’s ruler on my knuckles. I rub the enlarged metacarpophalangeal joints of my right hand as the memory surges. My body maps out my life in these rooms. The cross-shaped scar on my back. Tattoos of roses obscuring deep grooves on my wrists. Once, I lay on a hard cot and stared at the ceiling beams, wondering if I could nail a clothesline up there. Inside this ruin, the rooms darken the farther I proceed. Tendrils of the past grab my ankles, swirl around them, and tighten. Sister Josepha and Reverend Mother float through the wall, their admonishments ready. Why did I think I could rewrite the past? I’ve made a mistake coming here. I rip at the vegetation wrapping me and run toward the door. On the way out, I grab at the daffodil, but it jerks me toward the floorboards. I long to follow the phoenix on its flight to the future, but then wonder: why is it disguised as a pheasant? I long to follow the phoenix on its flight to the future, but then my suspicions arise. Do I have the wrong bird?

How Much is Enough

When her left pinky toe popped off in her hand, Nova shoved it between her mother’s eyeglasses and her knitting. “See, Mama!” Tears rolled down Nova’s cheeks, but her mother shrugged. “Let’s not make a mountain out of a molehill, Nova.” At night, the invisible outline of the missing toe radiated with pain. When Nova turned fifteen, the other four toes broke off at the beach. She sat on the sand, holding her foot and rocking her body. Her best friend patted her on the back, but soon was playing volleyball with the rest of the kids. Later, they walked up the hill to catch their ride. Nova limped and almost fell over on her side. Grasping her friend’s arm, she felt gratitude for the support.

Nova couldn’t figure out how to walk without crutches, so she fashioned toes out of balsa wood that fit perfectly into her Nikes. Nobody asked her about the prosthetic toes, although they chose her last for team sports. Sometimes even during the day the pain from the outline of the missing toes struck her like lightning. First year at college, Nova came home from the library and took off her shoes to get ready for bed. All five right toes remained in the shoe. She hadn’t even felt them detach from her foot. Lowe’s delivered the wood to her dorm, and Nova fashioned another set of toes. At night, Nova turned and turned in her bed as she tried to move away from the pain that never left.

Eventually all Nova’s fingers and toes were replaced. Then the hands and feet themselves. Nobody ever said a word to her about it. The few times she tried to bring it up, people stared and then changed the subject to more important things like haircuts and nail embellishments and which was the hippest club. When all Nova’s limbs were wooden carvings and pain ghosts, she hoped she was safe. But she woke up one morning with her torso fluttering open and her stomach missing. Nova’s scream couldn’t wake her roommate on a Saturday morning. She still had wood left, so Nova filled in the void and sewed herself back up.

At swimming class, Nova felt other students side-eying her Frankenstein-like stitches and wooden limbs. Their disapproval vacuumed the air out of the natatorium. The professor seemed irritated. “You’ll have to drop the course. The school can’t risk the liability. You can’t swim without limbs or organs.” Nova turned to leave when someone jostled her, knocking her into the pool. She felt herself sinking down to the bottom. Above the waterline she saw faces peering down at her and, despite everything, expected to see all their hands shoot out to pull her up to safety. Instead, they turned as one and wandered away. That’s when Nova reached the pool floor and bounced against it. The buoyancy of the balsa wood carried her to the top, where she floated on the surface. And, for now, it was enough.

Luanne Castle’s Pushcart, Best Small Fictions, and Best of the Net-nominated poetry and prose have appeared in Copper Nickel, TAB, Verse Daily, Saranac Review, Bending Genres, The Ekphrastic Review, Does it Have Pockets, South 85, Pleiades, River Teeth, The Dribble Drabble Review, and many other journals. She has published four award-winning poetry collections. Luanne lives with five cats in Arizona along a wash that wildlife use as a thoroughfare. 

Flash Boulevard is edited by Francine Witte. Banner photograph Wes Candela.