WOMEN OF STONES AND FLOWERS_ FLASH STORY 5

Sometime in the past, in the little hamlet of Umuowara, a woman lived who adored stones and flowers. With her bare hands, she grouped stones of different sizes and arranged them in rows around the outside of the wall of her single house. From a distance, you could see a dazzling continuum of sizes of stones on the ground, tidily growing bigger and away from the wall. And in her neatly swept compound, she heaped two mounds of stones, each of which boasted a posy of sunflowers in their center. Also, a hedge of red hibiscuses enclosed the compound. People came from far and near to gaze at the striking scenery. They talked of her fine sense of beauty for many years. And she loved to dance too and she was called “the bell of women” for her clarion call for order whenever there was disorder. But, see, as the years rolled by, she grew old and weak and only came out once in a great while to study her stones and flowers. One day, she left home and slept on the mountains. No one else looked for her except one woman. Yes, there was no one else that remembered that she was “the bell” except another woman. And this other woman was a beauty to behold. She was a flower among restless thorns. She never quarreled with other women. The only thing she knew how to do well was to spread joy and peace in the little hamlet of Umuowara. It was only this young flower of a woman that went in search of the woman of stones. But by the time she found her, the woman of stones had already caught a rare virus in the lonely bushes of the mountains that made her wince in pain and gave her uncontrollable hysteria. Whether it was a mammal or a mamba or the mountains that brought the ill wind, no one would ever know. The young woman took care of her for many days. Even the children of the old woman wondered at the care she received at the hands of the young woman.

But one fateful day, in a hysterical spell, the old woman involuntarily passed the virus to the flowery woman. It must have been through a bite or through the wind. No one knew for sure. But, ah, it was not of her own making. It was the will of God. No one else knew about this.  So for her remaining days on earth, the old woman knew joy at the hands of the young woman. But one day, the virus killed her. Suddenly, everyone else remembered that she was “the bell of women” and everyone else remembered her stones and flowers and that she danced beautifully.

And so it came to pass that the young woman became ill also. She lay wincing in pain for many days. And one day also, the virus took her. The day I saw both of them lying quietly side by side in a morgue, waiting to be buried, I knew I would not rest until I write this story for the world. This is because the young woman was my mother. The month they were buried was the most sober for the people of the little hamlet. Everyone resolved silently to always remember the beauty of flowers and stones. But, people of the world, why would they have to die before their beauty became understood? And why would the world continue to revolve around the sun without their precious beauty? Yet, every flower pure will bloom.