I married my wife in Summer. I don't know if she was beautiful or not. She was to me. I looked at her all the time, the way her hair swished behind her when she moved, the way her eyes would say what her lips couldn't. She liked this house, so we bought it. We moved in by Autumn. There was a garden full of daisies and chrysanthemums and begonias and so many other flowers I wasn't sure I'd ever seen. It reminded me of mother. Mother liked flowers.
Cynthia didn't. She didn't hate them the way she hated abortionists or child molesters. She hated them like rotting meat or an unclean toilet. I asked what could be more natural than flowers. She said nature made meat rot and toilets get dirty. I agreed that I'd get rid of the flowers in Spring, just to make her happy. I loved flowers, but she had allergies.
In Winter we found out she was dying. Neither one of us was shocked. We were sad, but it seemed almost right, in a way. We reasoned that we were fortunate that we could be married and enjoy our last months together without quarreling. Cynthia even went so far as to say she was glad she could die so early, so that I'd have a chance to find someone before I got old. I told her that was silly and she cried, but she asked if she would rather we had divorced after a few years and fought over the children. At her mention of children I felt a sudden pang. "Don't be sad," she said, "New life isn't always a good thing. If I had left you with children, think of how sad you would all be."
Cynthia never got old and ugly. She never lost her hearing or her dexterity or her wits. She just faded away. I felt terrible knowing there was nothing I could do to stop her dying. She said "Just remember me. Make me happy for you. I don't want you to be sad forever after I'm gone." So I decided I would just do my best to make her proud of me. I'd never love anyone else the same way, but she didn't want me to find someone to replace her, but someone else to love for who she was.
When she finally died, like a candle snuffed in the rain, I was shattered. I thought I would be able to deal with her loss, but I just couldn't face anything. The funeral wasn't very large. She wanted to be buried in the back yard. Everyone brought flowers. So many flowers. They piled them into the coffin. They loved her very much, like I did. When I realized this I somehow felt better. I can't say why, only that I knew I had been through the worst. I had grieved for Cynthia for three months all ready. I knew she was going to die. It wasn't sudden. There were no harsh words hanging between us like walls that could never be torn down. Everything was settled.
I worried about the flowers. I knew she hated them, but her family had lavished them on her. I wanted to dig her up and remove the flowers, but I realized how silly the notion seemed. She was dead, now, I knew. She wanted me to be happy. She didn't mind the flowers anymore. If she wanted me to be happy, and didn't mind the flowers, then she wouldn't have me take them down. Still, out of remembrance for her and acknowledgment that I would never be completely happy again, I didn't replant the flowers over her gravesoil. In fact I tore out the grass. She was dead, and there shouldn't be anything living on her grave.
Spring came. The flowers bloomed.
I started dating a woman named Chloe. Chloe was tall, passionate, generously proportioned. I think she wanted me the moment I told her I'd been married. "Married men are so sexy," she said sensuously. I reminded her that they were unavailable. "You aren't, though. Widowers aren't just sexy- they're available. And lonely. You're lonely, aren't you?" She kissed me warmly. I think she liked most the idea of taking a grey sky and making it sunny. I thought it was good; I thought it's what Cynthia would have wanted.
But Chloe was jealous. She loved flowers, like I did, and considered Cynthia's grave an eyesore. "It's so empty, so dead!" I told her it was a grave. "It's ghastly." She meant she wanted me to forget Cynthia and love her. I as worried that as soon as I did she would leave- that what she wanted was to take me out of my rut and that, having done so, she would leave. I was a challenge, maybe. Women don't like challenges, though. The idea of breaking me probably seemed worthwhile, but to her the difficulty was too tedious.
I'm being unfair, I know. She really did care for me, even though I know how wrong she was. She wanted everything fast fast fast, and I told her I wasn't ready. I told her I knew Cynthia 5 years before we married. She didn't like me to bring up Cynthia. I stopped. She moved in.
It was worse, then. Having someone to sleep with was nice, even though we didn't have sex. I didn't tell her it was because Cynthia wouldn't have liked it. Chloe was already angry about the pictures I had of Cynthia, the mementos from our trips together, and, especially, the grave.
Finally she broke down crying. I didn't know what to think. I'd never seen her cry before. "You think all I want is romance all the time!" she said. "I want other things too! I want you to love me!" Maybe she was just greedy, immature. But she was very sad, and wanted me very much. I wouldn't commit, wouldn't marry. "Then at least- at least do one thing for me- if you really love me-" I asked her what she wanted.
She wanted me to plant flowers on Cynthia's grave. So I did.
They stretched up towards the sun, their leaves waving in the wind. It seemed as I watch them grow almost that they were reaching lustfully towards the sun that warmed them. Sometimes I would look up and the sun would seem to melt over them, over everything. It was so bright outside, so warm. Chloe was happy.
One morning I woke up and Chloe told me there was a new flower growing. She had never seen anything like it. She was very excited, took me to look at it. It was strange- a thick green chute, with a strange shell- like substance on one side. It didn't seem right. It was all wrong. Cynthia didn't like flowers. Chloe was laughing at how beautiful it was. She moved against me, pressed my hand against her firm buttocks. The sun was melting, the flowers reaching towards it like hands clawing at a piece of rotting meat.
The next day I went to stand in front of Cynthia's grave. There were three new chutes, all the same, with the same strange shell-like substance on one side. Chloe was tickled. "See what new life I've given you? Don't you want more new life?" she asked, hugging me tightly. "I want children..." she said. I told her new life wasn't always a good thing. She wasn't listening. The birds were singing mad, tuneless songs. The sun was melting over the world. Pollen swirled into the air like poison. Of a sudden I felt dizzy. The Spring was too strong for me.
Chloe went over to inspect the new life. She touched the chutes. They moved. She dew back, her gaiety turning to confusion as the chutes bent and pushed down on the earth. More chutes appeared beside them, covered with dirt. The entire area was shifting. Dirt rising in the middle, plants writhing. The earth exhumed a puff of golden spores. I shouted, but Chloe didn't heed my warning. She breathed the pollen, grew dizzy, collapsed next to me.
"I'm so happy," Cynthia said, clutching the flowers to her breasts. She had never looked so alive. Her entire body was vibrant, glowing. Her bosom had never been so full, nor her hips so wide and inviting. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, drew their scent into her green nostrils. Her eyes were golden when she opened them, her breath dusty with spores. "You're happy, aren't you, Husband?" her tongue shouldn't be lolling from her mouth like that. Cynthia never looked at me the way this vile creature did. The new life stepped towards me. I staggered away.
She ignored me.
The sun melted onto Chloe's listless form. The new life put her mouth to Chloe's, exhaled. I ran. Inside the house was a shotgun. I didn't know why Cynthia had wanted me to get it. Most women are afraid of guns. She wanted one. "Just in case..."
"...The Spring comes," I whispered. I had just retrieved the gun when I saw Chloe walking towards me. A halo of pollen surrounded her. Her hands explored her body. Then she reached towards me when the other one came in behind her. I didn't know how to load the shotgun very well. The sun was melting through the windows. I couldn't see, couldn't think.
One of them grasped my leg. I don't know which one. There was pollen everywhere. I couldn't breathe. She was taking off my clothes. The other was coming, reaching for my mouth. I finished loading the gun in time to blast her in the stomach. Poison green ichor spattered the walls with Spring. I fired again, again, again.
The shotgun was out of bullets. The sun had stopped melting. I was alone in a room with two naked-
The police saw what happened. They wouldn't believe me. They told the judge I was drunk. Otherwise why would I have shot my own legs off as well? They didn't believe in fear like I had known. They didn't understand madness. And they didn't explain the fact that one of the corpses in my living room had already been buried. Or the fact that they were both green, their voluptuous bodies covered with pollen.
They put me away.
Is it a sanitarium, or death row? I don't know. There's a window, and the birds sing their mad songs outside. The sun melts onto me when it is up. Even at night I can still smell pollen. I'm always dizzy.
New life isn't always a good thing. Don't talk to me about the Spring.