It was mid-day. 18 year-old Kess was returning from Dayton Avenue where his love interest lived. He had put himself out there and been turned down by Chelsea again. He was getting used to her subtle rejections, the sound of her hearty laughter as she playfully thumped his chest and no sooner, brushed his words aside until the next time when he summoned the courage to repeat himself.
It was obvious she took him for a joke or like she had just told him, did not see him in that way. He could not exactly blame her. While she was easily the hottest girl in school, he was the opposite- most definitely her D.U.F.F (Designated Ugly Fat Friend). Of course, he was neither female nor fat and knew Chelsea had never gone out of her way to make him feel that way but the knowledge did nothing to stop the feeling.
They had grown up as best buddies and next-door-neighbours, basically inseparable since kindergarten school until Chelsea’s parents had moved several blocks away. Now, they almost only saw in school except for the steadily dwindling number of times they met up after school hours.
Her rejection had hurt differently this time. Kess still felt like he had been punched in his guts. He would be an idiot and a blind bat not to have gotten the message. Today, he had gone a step further to show Chelsea he meant what he had been telling her for a while now. He had told her again and then kissed her to seal his words.
St. Valentine’s Day was only a few days away and he wanted to spend it with her as they usually did only not as mere friends this time. Now, he knew better than to think Chelsea had leaned into the kiss and returned it just before they had been shoved apart by the force from angry hands.
They had both been shocked but Chelsea had soon recovered when she saw who their interrupter was. It had taken Kess longer to do so because he could not understand what Henry was doing in Chelsea’s bedroom or how he had even gotten there. As far as he knew, Henry was not their friend and had no business being around Chelsea even though they all attended the same school. It had felt so unreal at the time, like his imagination had been running wild but he had been jolted by a punch from Henry that convinced him it was as real as real could get.
Henry was the male equivalent of Chelsea; Kess had once reluctantly admitted to Chelsea he thought Henry was too handsome and that that was the genesis of his arrogant nature. They all went way back but the problem was, they had never been cool with Henry and all things being equal, should not be now which was why he felt so betrayed by Chelsea.
Henry had bullied him for as long as he could remember, throwing jibes at him and on a few occasions, going as far as hitting him. He could now see why Henry had severally picked on him without being provoked. He must have had a thing for Chelsea and seen him, Kess, as a way to get her attention.
Kess would not go as far as to think Henry had been jealous of his close relationship with Chelsea, he was no match for Henry’s charm, build or physical features. The girls in school flocked around him. He was also the captain of the soccer team.
How had he not known that Chelsea and Henry were an item? They had to have had something going on for a long time for Henry to have known his way up her bedroom window and not given a care to doing so in broad day light. He could have been seen by a nosy neighbor despite being shielded from view by the giant tree that stood close to the window. Why had Chelsea kept it secret, not just from him but from the entire school as well? His chest hurt from thinking about it.
Following the punch, Henry had mocked him while Chelsea held him back by clinging to him. He had said things that had cut into Kess deeper than a sword possibly could. It was not the words that Henry said that had hurt; it was who he said the words originally belonged to, Chelsea. The fact that Chelsea had not denied being the original owner of those hurtful words had thorn his heart to shreds. She was not the friend he thought she was. How had he missed that too?
He felt bitter right now, so blinded by rage he could barely see where he was headed and had resorted to focusing on the movement of his shoes to see him home. His shoes knew this path very well because they had walked it severally since Chelsea’s family moved away. Today, he trusted them to lead him home.
Kess looked down as he walked just in time to see a daffodil he had been two steps away from crushing. He paused in his stride to study the flower from where he stood. It looked fresh and beautiful, made brighter by sunlight. He had read somewhere that a daffodil symbolizes rebirth and new beginnings. How much of a coincidence could this be, he wondered. The flower ought to have been trampled on by any of the number of persons who must have walked this path earlier but there it lay, looking fresh and seemingly beckoning him to pick it up.
On any other day, he might have done just that, picked it up and put it in a water jar on getting home but today was not a good day and he needed to take his anger out on something or someone. Since the flower was the best thing the universe could throw in his way at the moment, who was he to refuse the offer? In two steps, Kess was crushing the flower. He moved his shoes back and forth to create friction between them and the ground which would see to it that nothing was left of the daffodil when he decided he had had enough. He vented as he did this, mumbling unprintable words under his breath with his fists tightened by his sides.
A woman walking by with her dog directed furtive glances at him, she must have decided that all was not well with Kess because she quickened her steps and was soon lost behind the corner she turned. The trampling feat had not assuaged Kess’ anger, so deciding it was time to move on, he moved sideways off what was now left of the once beautiful daffodil and waited a few minutes to pay his respects to it. The daffodil had not deserved the treatment he had given it and Kess felt guilt slowly sneaking up on him.
As he made to leave, he turned to pay his last respects to the crushed daffodil but was taken aback by what he saw. Apparently, in the few seconds when his gaze had been averted, the daffodil had bloomed again, returning to its former glory. Shocked beyond words, Kess made to run but was rooted to the spot. He felt the goose bumps that indicated his fear as he shivered, confused tears running down his cheeks. He must be in some sort of hallucination, Kess thought. As he looked on in petrification, the daffodil rose slowly into the air until it was three feet above him after which it expanded in size to become five times bigger than him.
Kess resigned himself to a fate he did not understand and so, he stood simply watching, a wet patch visible on his pants. His fear was very much still evident but he had no choice than to remain rooted to the spot. His shock was heightened when he heard the daffodil speak. It not only had a mouth but also had eyes and ears as well. Kess chanced a look downwards and just as a sixth sense he did not know wherefrom had told him, the largest pair of shoes he had ever seen stared right back at him. The daffodil’s voice was as soft but firm as its petals still looked. Its words were demanding listening ears from Kess and almost spellbound, he heard them.
The daffodil was furious with him no doubt. It had offered Kess a chance at a new beginning but he had turned it down in the rudest way possible because he had been blinded by rage. Kess pleaded fervently but the daffodil would close its ears each time he started to speak. It said Kess had had his chance but had lost it and had to learn the hard way that sometimes like now, one chance was all one could get from life.
His punishment was simple; Kess would be crushed in the same way he had let his rage lead him into crushing a harmless flower. At that, the daffodil jumped high up into the sky and was coming down hard on a screaming and hysterical Kess...
Kensington Smith!
Kess awoke with a start drenched in sweat. His memory was hazy at first until his name was called out loud again. Remembering, he sat up so fast he almost toppled over and answered the caller in a voice just as loud. It was time to go.
He gathered his few belongings in the small room he had shared with different roommates in the past ten years. He was finally getting out on good behaviour after he had gotten parole. Luckily for him, the powers that had seen him put behind bars seemed to have waned in the past year else he doubted if he would have made it through the night not to mention being let out of the gates of the maximum prison right now.
Night.
Kess recalled the dream as he stepped out, the gates closing behind him. It was not the first time he had had the dream. In fact, he had had it severally in the days leading up to his release, some days more intense than others and each time he did, he awoke confused and sweaty. The dream was usually very detailed in reminding him of what had driven a wedge between him, his once-upon-a-time best friend, Chelsea and his arch enemy, Henry all those years ago before it would become so unreal with the giant daffodil bits. That wedge had grown incredibly bigger over the years since the afternoon in Chelsea’s bedroom and had played its part in landing a then 25 year old Kess in prison seven years later.
Kess was not the superstitious or spiritual sort that read meanings into abstract things but he could not shake the feeling that there were meanings, warnings even, embedded in his dreams. The past ten years had been long and tough. Much tougher in the beginning when he had been trying to adjust to a life he had been convinced would be eternally his if his incarcerators continued to have a say in the matter. A life he had been sentenced to by a twisted judgment delivered under the façade of a fair trial.
He knew exactly who had masterminded the planting of those drugs in his apartment and had come to the conclusion after series of forced sober reflections in his cell the many times he had had nothing else to do that there was no way Chelsea had not been involved in the plans that had seen him behind bars. Kess was convinced that Henry must have finally gotten his greedy hands on his business’ prototype, the lead among their many bones of contention at the time he had been sentenced to prison.
He could not still believe Chelsea had done it willingly hence had tasked his imagination so hard to unravel what Henry, his business rival, could have had on her to bend her to his will and had come up naught. Henry’s sinister smile as he hugged Chelsea closer while Kess was being led away from court to prison on the final day of the trial was very much still etched on his brain.
After the death of his parents almost eleven years ago, Chelsea had been the only one he had let close enough to have succeeded in somehow getting narcotics into his system prior to the night of his arrest such that his confidence in himself that he would emerge negative to a drug test had been reduced to mere lies in court and used against him. He wished now he had seen through her pretentious consolation and seeming empathy at the news of his parents’ death. In retrospect, he believed it had all been part of a grand ploy. Even now, the trial was still such a blur, it had happened so fast that he had been sentenced before he knew it.
He had grown increasingly bitter as the days had passed slowly hoping for a chance to avenge the wrong done him. It had shown up a few months ago when for the first time in the ten years since his incarceration, the possibility that he would get out had surfaced from God-knows-where. With the chance came the realization that should he get out, what he mostly wanted was to live life again as a free individual without time and space constraints.
He could however not help the bile that surged up his throat when his thoughts occasionally strayed to Chelsea and inadvertently, Henry. It had been a conscious struggle to focus on what really mattered which for him was getting out.
35 year old Kess stopped to breathe in the fresh and unbound air that surrounded him. This was freedom at last. No one had come to pick him up, not that he had been expecting anyone to. As far as he was concerned, he had no one and nothing left that mattered in this city.
He would not give credit to the dream but all he wanted now was a fresh start, a new beginning. He just did not care enough about getting revenge or satisfying his bitter rage right now. Someday perhaps, he would return to do that which was necessary to right the wrong done him but today was not it. Today, he wanted to be far away from this city that had once held happy memories for him. Those times seemed so far away in the past he could barely reach them.
Mientras permanecía en la intersección que cementaría su elección, Kess siguió el camino que lo alejaría de la ciudad. No sabía qué le depararía el futuro en la dirección que había elegido, pero estaba decidido a conquistar su pasado. Saludos a un nuevo comienzo.