Petals

The rock was painted with broad expressionistic strokes of scarlet. Now, after eternity and a season of rain, all physical evidence is gone. Of course, Jessie has always known she would not survive in body, but in thoughts and words. Tonight they are gathering to express those thoughts and share those words. Jessie is the first to arrive, and she sits down on the rock, watching the sun set and waiting for the others.

After the sun goes down, she stands up. She expects to see the other two climbing – and she does – but what strikes her is the bay, far below: a tireless reminder that the cycles of the world – the crashing of waves, the ebbing and flowing of tides – ceases not even for the most celestially significant of prophets. But now Nina is arriving, and the other one is not far behind.

“Hi Jessie!”

“Hello. How are you? I haven’t seen you since the funeral.”

“Has it really been a year? Yes, the 14th of September. Seems like just last week we were in her garden looking for four-leaf clovers; she never did realise that it doesn’t grow here.”

Raphael arrives: “That’s what I told her. But, you know, she did find one, once. The day she met me. Hello, by the way. I’m Raphy.”

“Raphy?” asked Nina. “You knew Emily?”

“I don’t know her. I met her once. We chatted for a few hours.”

“Well, Raphy – I’m Jessie, by the way – and Nina, I suppose I should tell you why I asked you here. It’s now a year since Emily died and –”

“Emily’s dead?” asks Raphy. He is stunned now; grief will come later.

Tears rise to Jessie’s eyes, and fall down her cheeks: “Oh god! You didn’t know? She killed herself. She slit here wrists, here, on this rock, exactly a year ago. I can’t believe nobody told you.”

“Why should they tell me?” he asks. “I hardly knew her.”

“She left two notes,” says Jessie, “one was the everyday I-can’t-take-it-anymore goodbye note. The other was different: it was just as heart-rending, but it was gentler. She said goodbye, left some advice and blessings for those she was leaving behind. That one was addressed to Nina, to me… and to you. She said we were the ones she loved.”

“We loved her,” adds Raphy. They do.

Jessie takes some candles from her bag. She sets them on the rock and lights them. Nina has brought a flask of red wine. They sit, and drink, and cry.

They grieve – Raphy especially, for he has not grieved before. They talk. They remember. They read the poems of their lost friend. They honour a sensitive poet, an insightful artist. They cry, but also laugh: Emily was lost to the dark, but lived, loved, and lives again, in the light.

The moon is high when Raphy moves away. He picks a single flower, and returns. Jessie and Nina do the same. Jessie picks up the flask, and empties the wine on the rock, saying, “This is the blood of Emily[1], our Tzadik . She gave it to this rock, and it flows now through the veins of Mother Earth, and of us all. May this blood give us Emily’s understanding.”

“May it give us her wisdom,” intones Nina.

“And may it give us her pain,” finished Raphael, “for pain brings perception, and perception brings enlightenment.”

They lay their flowers in the wine, on the cenotaph of the Tzadik, and start the walk home. The petals lie scattered in the blood.




[1] Jewish tradition teaches that in every generation there are 36 tzadikim (particularly wise and holy people) whose righteousness and wisdom, unrecognised by those around them, is responsible for guiding humanity and preserving the world. It is said that if they did not exist, God would have no choice but to destroy the world.