Desert Flowers

By Prerna Prakash

It was the smell of Marigolds that finally made her look up from the scorched, broken earth.

The heat, as always, was searing. A sliver of her neck exposed between the top of her shirt and the bottom of her scarf was burning in the heat, but she had been too lazy to move. The sun always did this to her. It made her slow, sluggish. 

Her mother had always said she was like a cat sitting in the sun—lying, curling, unmoving. Her father had called her a lizard. Sunning herself in the heat that would kill most others. 

But she liked it. She liked the sun. She liked the slowness it brought to the world. The dry, aching pain that came with the light. 

Today, the air was just as she enjoyed it–dry, raspy, gritty. It was almost as if she could feel the dust going into her chest. She did that sometimes–pretended that she was breathing in everything and then exhaling it out. A bit of herself littered the whole world–a bit of the world in herself. 

That day was one of the hottest. All the other children had been enticed into their homes before noon with cold sharbats and buttermilk. But her mother knew she liked it outside, so she left her there. Kaya was happy about that.

The inside of the house was always a little moist, the mildewy smell made her uncomfortable. Outside, she could smell the soil and the shrubs, the motes that danced in the sky. She could smell the stray dog that wandered up and down the little village, carrying the sand from the desert on his fur. 

And today. She smelled marigolds.

It was unusual. There were no flowers in the village anymore. The sun would burn them all to a crisp.

There was once a man who was mad enough to try to start a garden at the end of the village, down the big road. He said that if enough people were willing to donate just a bit of their everyday water, they could have a lush park for everyone to enjoy.

What a loony. 

“Probably trying to steal the water”, Father had said that night at dinner. Kara, younger by a year and still learning to eat with her hands without spilling, had nodded along and copied her grandfather’s loud snort, making the adults laugh out loud. 

The kids loved to talk about the shut-in madman at the end of the road, and some of the braver ones had even been to see the shack he lived in. They said it looked like death. Bare windows with barely a curtain to keep the heat out–and a lone pot with dead soil. The kids liked to laugh at the man who never showed his face, and Kaya laughed with the others. What a loony, what a loony. 

The small shack at the end of the big road was left alone. At the edge of the desert, there was no need for anyone to go there anyway. The handpump was on the other end of town, and the desert spring was rumoured to have dried up the previous year. 

Only the bigger boys would sometimes go over there to laugh at the empty house, then come back and tell the other kids about it. Perhaps, one small child had whispered, perhaps he had turned into the pot? 

The peals of laughter sounded through the village before the child herself giggled and ran with the others, leaving behind the silly thought and a cloud of dust to settle on everything.

The people of the village left him to himself, and he stayed inside. Probably still trying to think of ways to steal the water, Kaya thought.

But the smell of Marigolds–it kept tickling her nose. She stood from her crouch. Her ankles ached from sitting too long on the hard dirt, and she could see her long cotton skirt was already dusty enough that Mother would tell her to change into a new one at night. Tomorrow morning, she would take this one outside, hang it on the small dried-up tree in front of their house, and beat it with a stick to get the dirt out. 

Kaya did not mind. It would get dirty again, anyway. 

She looked back furtively at her house, a little way away from where she was sitting, and started walking in the other direction.

Ma told her to always stay within shouting distance of the house, but with a village this small, everything was within shouting distance, wasn’t it? 

All was quiet. The shadows of the big birds circling above played at her feet as she walked towards the faint aroma. She didn’t have to hide–no one would be out at this time of the day. They all went into their houses and pulled the curtains, some spraying water on them to keep their homes cool. It was surprising they had not smelled the bouquet yet, Kaya thought.

The damp curtains would keep her away from the prying eyes of her family. Baba would not be back before evening, and Ma would be busy with food. Grandfather never did much besides lying on the cot.

She would be fine. It was fine. 

As she reached the edge of the village, the smell of minerals changed to one of dried grass and dunes. The village dog found her and started trotting beside her in amiable silence. 

Everything was silent. Just the crackle of her feet breaking through debris of what had once been shrubs and grass and the tiny huffing breaths of her companion. She was not supposed to go so far away from home–she knew that–but Kaya felt wonderfully free.

There were no other people in the world except her and her faithful, furry companion. Nothing but the sound of their padding feet, and nothing except the smell of marigolds, getting stronger as she walked towards the desolate West. 

The sun above her narrowed her shadow into a pinprick at her feet, and she could feel the burn all over her exposed skin. There wasn’t much; she wasn’t a child anymore and knew how to dress for the outside. Her scarf covered her head and face, the long shirt, her arms, and her loose skirt took care of the rest.

Her hands and feet burned with a familiar ache–but Kaya liked that–and so did the sliver of neck she still had not cared to cover, but her eyes burned with a different emotion.

She was almost at her destination. She knew now where the smell was carrying her. Her slow meander turned into a fast walk, and with many looks over her shoulder, almost a jog. It would not do to be caught and dragged back home at the almost-end of her little adventure.

The shack stood desolate, a way away from the rest of the village. It was still within, but it marked the end of the road. Kaya could see the sea of sand expanding behind the ramshackle place, an expanse that spelled certain death.

Slowing down as she reached the shack, she looked back one last time and patted the dog on his head. No sounds. No people. Nothing but her and her friend and the empty, empty world.

“Let’s go find the flowers.”

Kaya said it to the dog, who grinned and let his tongue fall out. She also said it to herself.

It had been years since she had seen a flower. Almost when she was a baby, she guessed. But now, being so grown up, the memory was fading, and she wanted to see it herself. Check whether her memory was real or just a dream she had.

Sidling up to the house, she saw the open window the boys had talked about. There was a pot right there! But it was empty. Dust-dead soil, as they had said. Even though the smell of marigolds was overwhelming, she shook her head, her heart plummeting.

What a loony, what a loony, what a loony.

She turned to leave. What a waste of time. Of course, there were no flowers. It was probably the scent that the madman had put around his house to lure the kids there, right? He was mad after all. 

As she stepped away, another smell crept up, suddenly and subtly intermingling with the flowers. It was something sweeter, something a little more. 

A cloying smell that made the smell of the marigolds turn darker. 

Before she could think about it, Kaya turned and pulled the door open, hard and loud. The sun-dried slab almost fell off in her hands. The madman had not done any maintenance.

As the door opened, however, she forgot everything about the madman, the heat, the world. She forgot the dog beside her, her hand on the splintering door, and her mouth–now agape. The whiff that had led her here was nothing compared to what was within the shack. 

The wet smell of earth–not ground, not sand–damp earth assaulted her. Rich, loamy, spicy, untamed. The scent was nostalgic and raw—like temple visits or an old graveyard where flowers bloomed stubbornly between cracked stones.

The whole shack, small as it was, was full of pots. Small, big, medium-sized–and all those pots were full of little orange and red blooms. 

The shack was full of marigolds.   

As she slowly walked into the home, hesitating to step on anything alive, a trace of the fetid odour reached her again.

The madman sat beside the door, limp and hunched over. His skin dried parchment, crackled and breaking apart. It was just like the earth that Kaya loved to stare at. Dry. Broken. Dead. 

Guess the man had given all his water to his plants. The beautiful, beautiful plants that the village would claim as their own for at least a year to come. The plants that were not yet crisp in the sun with neglect. The plants that were loved to death. With prickling, dry eyes, Kaya turned back to the flowers, breathing deeply.

What a loony.

By Prerna Prakash