Flower on the Brain By Francesca Attar ~ WINNER OF THE NONMAJOR CONTEST ~
Carl was an eighty-two-year-old man whose mentality was still catching up to the aging of his physicality. His thinning skin took on the weight of gravity and the years that flew over his head. But Carl was unbothered by these changes; how could he be bothered when he possessed the most beautiful little butterfly in all of Envy Valley? Not only did he possess the creature, but he also cared for it deeply. Every day during feeding hours, Carl sat in the garden, kept the creature and watched it. The garden that Carl had nourished from four hundred square feet of infertile soil to a neatly organized community of plants that worked together for the butterfly soon to arrive was that of magnificence. Yellow coneflowers and goldenrods, two nectar-filled favorites of the butterfly, made up the majority of the population in the garden. The butterfly trusted Carl. It allowed him to house it, feed it, and observe it to a typically uncomfortable extent for most beings. It had every chance to abandon the lovely garden, but Carl’s fascination and endless selection of sugary vegetation compelled the butterfly to remain. As it unraveled its straw-like tongue, Carl followed. Carl’s tongue was not nearly as long, but once again, he was nothing less than content. As the butterfly sucked the sweet, sticky nectar from the flowers, Carl mimicked it poorly. From flower to flower, the butterfly jumped, the speckled black and blue gradient that spanned its wings flashing again and again. That night Carl wanted to see if his wings had grown in yet. He unbuttoned his apron and lifted his shirt cautiously above his head, as he couldn’t risk messing up his wings. Turning to the full body mirror, he was ready to see the progression of the desired limbs. Slowly rotating, Carl’s expecting eyes and hopeful smile soon dissolved from his face. All that was similar to the body of the butterfly were the bronze sunspots that entertained his patchy back. Without getting into his cloud-decorated pajamas or turning off the lights, Carl moped his way next to the twin bed in the corner of the room and dropped to the floor right beside it. He simply closed his eyes, and they remained so as the liveliness of the room plateaued, and his whimper-like snores took hold of the silence. It was a new day; specifically, the extraordinarily hot day that was June 26th, 1990, and Carl refused to recall the events of the previous night. He skipped out to the garden and was taken aback by the mountain
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