The Flowers

The flowers were watching him. Watching all of the walkers. Turning their beautiful faces as people passed; emotional palettes swaying in the gentlest breeze and yet that was how he had noticed their subtle trickery. It was simple really, because sometimes the flowers moved even when there was no breeze. As he studied them further, he realised that many of them, in following passers-by, actually turned the faces away from the sun. That, he knew, was impossible.

So, yes, the flowers were watching him but they were not aware that he was watching them. At least, he did not believe so and he was an expert in the game of not being noticed. After all, he’d had a lifetime of practice. Well, almost a lifetime. One silly mistake and his world had shrunk from capital cities and dangerously romantic countries to the four walls of this building and the iron fence round the garden.

It was difficult recalling the exact details of that mistake, that momentary lapse. Occasionally he dreamt it, full featured, in vivid colour. But his memory died as he woke up. Every single time. He would curse and strain and struggle to grasp the threads of the dream. It was so important. He knew that. He knew it was the key to the locked door of his mind: the entrance to his memory. But it always remained a fingertip away, a gasp. Some mornings saw him stretched out on his narrow bed, grinding his teeth, wearing nothing but tears.

Before he acted, before he exposed the actions of the flowers, he felt it necessary to know why they were seemingly sentient. This thought process caused his senses to sharpen. He began to notice other oddities, more unlikely occurrences. The fireplace in his room, for example, was never stacked with wood or coal and lit. But it buzzed, a dreadful low sound that reverberated in his bones, faster and faster as he approached the fireplace but slower as he moved away. From the safety of the garden cupola, he traced the line of his chimney, one amongst many on the roof of this Victorian country seat, and was amused by the smoke pouring out. He sucked his teeth.

“Where there’s smoke, there’s not fire. Apparently!”

He would have laughed out loud at the ludicrousness of this childish error but one of the Uniforms was nearby. Its flat grey mask had turned, smoothly, and the camera on its forehead was regarding the man.

He looked down, then slowly moved away, not knowing exactly why but the Uniforms terrified him. Or was that another dream?

In the centre of the lawn, someone had planted a couple of small trees. There were tiny rust coloured apples on one, crab apples perhaps, all perfect with no holes drilled by hungry wasps. And whoever was in charge had filled some bird feeders with fat balls and peanuts and hung them from the taller tree. These, too, were untouched.

“Where are the birds?” he thought. “I haven’t seen a single one, not even a house sparrow. Or a squirrel. They’re usually attracted to bird feeders for the nuts, an easy meal.”

Once, there had been a dead bee, a disturbance on the polished surface of the windowsill, but was that a recent event or a leftover dreg of his childhood? Uncertain, he suddenly felt hollow, alone, despite all the strangers wandering nearby.

There was a rustle of clothing behind him. It came from the far side of the wide, white gravelled path. He was skilful, experienced at this kind of manoeuvre and so knew only one thing could get behind him without being noticed. But he would not look. That would show fear. So he murmured to himself and pointed across the garden as if he had seen something interesting and casually stepped away. He heard the tiny motor whirr as the camera adjusted its focus. All along the sides of the path, flowers turned as one, petals following his progress.

He toured the garden. Twice. Not rushing, giving nothing away. Took in the fishpond with its goldfish and guppies, stillness and speed, darkness and light and, all the time, bubbles where the waterfall replenished the pond. Nobody else took any notice. The fish might just as well have been made of plastic. Perhaps they… Not plastic but…

The trees were real. That was something. He could not touch their trunks to run fingers over the patterned textures because of the iron bars of the fence in the way. But they certainly looked genuine. The leaves and branches moved in the breeze. Although, come to think of it, they were just like the flowers, those unnerving bundles of colour. All lies, all fake, all somehow intrinsically evil. What, then, if the breeze itself was not natural?

He retired to the stained white, ivy-covered cupola. As he arrived, a woman, a gangly sparse-haired creature, immediately left her seat and, looking only at her feet, hurried off. The man sat down in the one shady corner. There, he hoped, he could not be seen as he studied the limited world through half closed eyes, searching for clues while pretending to doze. When he could no longer see the Uniform, the one that for its own obscure purpose had been trailing him, he finally relaxed. The late afternoon shadows counted off the minutes across the lawn and the flowerbeds until the man, unable to resist the warm air, finally feel asleep.

When he was startled awake, there was no moon. The night sky was empty of stars, of any lights at all but the garden was blazing. Every bush, every single-stemmed yellow poppy or purple aster mass, even the blades of grass on the lawn, everything that should have been sleeping was shining a beam of light up towards the darkness. There was no sound then, yet somehow he knew they were there: a group of Uniforms had surrounded the cupola. He was the last real person left in the garden and they had come to escort him back to the house, to his dark and narrow room. They did not so much tell him, as simply let him work it out for himself. He believed that was how it had always worked.

Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he walked in the centre of the Uniforms’ circle. There were eight of them, all points of the compass. They never seemed to hurry or, in fact, change their speed at all, so the man was made to shuffle along in time with them. At the steep steps leading up to the main door, he stumbled. The Uniforms moved away. They would not help. They must never be touched. The man did not know how he knew this. He just did. Perhaps the knowledge was behind that locked door in his mind. But he had not accidentally stumbled. Something had caught his eye. Something about the flowers. Something…strange…

As he straightened, he glanced up at the sky, following the beams of light from the garden and yes, he had not been mistaken. Where the beams came together they formed letters. These coalesced into words. Words he could read. Horror made real. Horror he wished he could wipe from his mind. All around him, lightbulbs flashed, blinding him. Motors whirred as the cameras on the foreheads of the Uniforms focused, adjusted, refocused, closed in on his face. His horrified eyes and terrified face were all the evidence that would be needed. Proof of something. The vein in his left temple began to pulse. For one awful moment his sight faded completely. He thought to escape, to run for his life or just for his sanity, but the Uniforms knew. Somehow they always knew. They reacted, closed ranks and he could not get between or touch them.

Like a frightening invitation, the door to the house opened of its own accord and with it the unoiled cogs of reality groaned into motion. Eastern pots, engraved with the faces of ancient gods, lined the hallway, shimmering in the mist and darkness that stretched away endlessly. Giant sunflowers rose out of them and shivered as their faces turned towards him. They were grinning sickly as he was shocked, prodded and pushed violently forward. This was the same front door but with a different passage beyond it, not the one he had left the house by. The man was, somehow, elsewhere. He desperately wanted to tell someone, to warn people but he knew those in charge would only increase his medication. That is, if there was anyone in charge.