Plastic Flowers by Meredith Stumbaugh, Fayette

Third Place: Fiction Plastic Flowers Meredith Stumbaugh, Fayette

Age spotted, and wrinkly hands fiddle with their cup of hot tea and sugar. Melvin Nickli who was the writer of one of the bestselling love stories in the 2000’s, called Plastic Flowers. The book was published mere months before his wife was able to read the book, which had been written and dedicated to her. Mel’s biggest regret was his wife not being able to read it before she died. He would go back and redo it if he could. These days he spent his lonely days reading and watching the nightly news, a picture of his wife on the table next to him. While he regretted it, people couldn’t help but love such a sweet tale. It inspired love as readers discovered the tale of the plastic flowers. Melvin met his wife Vi when they were seventeen. He loved her at first glance; however, it would take more than a glance to win over Vi’s heart. All summer Melvin tried his best to make her fall in love with him: little notes, drive-in movies, ice cream dates, and complete adoration. By the end of the summer, he knew he had won her heart. He went out and bought a rose; however, he was in such a hurry he didn’t notice it was a plastic one. When she came out of her house he gave her the rose and asked if she would be his girl. Violet said yes without a pause but then began to giggle as she noticed the rose was not real like Mel had thought. He was embarrassed but Violet laughed and hearing her laugh so loudly made him laugh too. So, every year after that Melvin brought her a plastic flower on their anniversary. The book went on to describe their wonderful life together, the ups, the downs, and everything in between and it was all for her. That night he felt particularly reminiscent and decided to venture into what used to be her craft room; he never went in there because it reminded him of her too much. The room still smelled like her. He went over to the closet where they had stored all the plastic flowers and pulled out the box of flowers. Beside it he found a note in his wife’s writing, which read: “My darling I know I wasn’t supposed to read it but I couldn’t help it. It was wonderful honey. Reading it I felt like we were seventeen again or twenty-two buying our first house together. I couldn’t help but laugh when you talked about the time the dog got loose and we had to chase it all through the neighborhood just to find him on our porch! Hopefully you won’t find this until I’ve safely tucked it in your coat pocket on the big day. You’ve bought me flower after flower, but now it’s my turn. Congratulations, I love you.” Just next to the note he found two plastic flowers and he smiled for the first time in a long while.