Garden Party

The smell was overwhelming; it went beyond filling the young girl’s nose and seemed to bleed into taste, sight, and sound. She did not so much walk through the garden as float through it, carried by her senses.

“Violet!” the girl’s mother called out like a whip. Violet dropped back to her feet.

“Mom!” she implored. “I was having such a nice time!”

“If you spend any more time out here you’re going to turn into a flower--” Violet did not see a downside in this consequence “--go wash up and get ready for bed.”


Violet grumble, but agreed to do as she’d been told. She moped her way through washing and brushing and putting on pajamas. Her mother tucked her into bed and wished her goodnight with a kiss on the forehead.

The clock in the hall clicked when it should have ticked and knocked when it should have tocked - at least this was the case for the little girl whose wide eyes were fixed upon the ceiling.

Finally, sure her mother was asleep, Violet sprung from her bed and went once more to the garden. It would be a moonlit performance for spectators with no eyes. She began her dance.

The fragrances were the orchestra; the wet grass the adoring crowd. Each nose-full of the nocturnal flowers created light, sound, and rhythm in Violet’s head as she danced under the stars. She knew what moves she needed to make by listening to the smell of the flowers; by the vibrancy of their colors in her mind.

She danced forever.

At least, she danced forever in a relative sense - time creeped back into her world by way of weights on her arms and legs and eyelids. She pressed on with the dance until her strength gave out and she fell to the ground.

Violet slept deeply, blanketed by the smells of the garden - each hour changing slightly as her plant protectors tried to woo different pollinators. She dreamt of a quilt of smell and stems and soil; a woven world she lay enveloped within.

She woke with the sparrows and the bees and the sun, at once fully alert. She rushed back into the house in the hopes that she’d woken before her mother. She hopped into bed and drew up her blankets.

“Violet,” her mother called in a song. “It’s time for breakfast.”

“Okay Mom, I’ll be right down,” the little one answered. She made an intentional racket as she made herself ready for the morning - as if she’d merely woken moments before. She straightened herself out and joined her mother in the kitchen.

“Were you in the garden last night?”

“No Mom,” Violet panicked. “I went straight to sleep.”

“Ah,” said her mother with a raised eyebrow. “Then why are your feet green?”