March 27th, or thereabouts

When it first started, we feared it was some strange disease. That, having fought through a long, unforgiving winter, we would now lose our precious crops to this new infection, even as the last frost melted in the warmth of a spring morning. We are still not certain about what it means.

I bend down to look at the strange bulge, flushed slightly with a hint of blue, of night sky, and frowned. So it has come to my garden, too. And the communal fields, of course, are long infected (?) by it. If one walks through the valley, one will notice that they are everywhere – on the tips of each tree's branches, sprouting on an elongated stem from grasses, growing on each bush. Strange, ripe swellings of green, or pale white, or tinted with some other color. Our elders shake their heads and mutter of the omens – the bright-tailed star that had appeared in the sky at the beginning of December, the hard, cold season, the queer snowstorm engulfing the village and the mountains in a white, howling demonic blizzard for days, weeks.

March 29th, or thereabouts

Now, though, I think that perhaps this sun, this warm and mellow yellow sun in a mellower gentle sky, couldn't possibly indicate anything bad. The others fearfully try to shelter their plants, but I take advantage of the good weather and set them outside. Apart from the disease, they are growing lush and green. Perhaps they will be all right.

April

– no news to speak of. The animals, at least, are doing much better this year than they have for a long, long time, as far back as I can remember. The chickens, roosters, geese, strut through the village, showing off bright eyes and glossy feathers. Their eggs, they used to be brown, are now snow-white and selling for much more on the market. The cows are growing plump and their milk is creamy. The horses are more energetic, but obedient. The cats and dogs play together, roaming the streets, just like the children are.

May 1st

This is the day we figure it out.

In the morning, or perhaps while we are asleep...

...for I dream of a fantastical land, wreathed in living sculptures and jewels that breathe on the hills, sparking and glimmering and filling my mind with a wonderful fog of happiness. And when I awake, I think that I dream still. It is as though our village has been swamped by a strange sort of weather. The first thing I notice is a delicate perfume, sweet and intoxicating, almost like the one merchants bring from their travels but fresher, much fresher, and much, much more delicious. When I get up, I see that outside – the growths that had been forming on every plant have fountained forth, unraveled, like the silk cloths I saw for sale once. The perfume I smell comes from thousands of white, star-shaped growths on the jasmine vine that practically engulfs my house.

In a daze, chores forgotten, we leave our houses and wander through the woodland and valley and gardens. Everywhere we look, there are more of them, in every hue imaginable. There are large and many-folded crimson ones that breathed heavenly clouds upon us from the rose bushes, and bannered, pale, amethyst lupine, and small, sweet blushing ones, like the tender touches of sunrise. There are glossy, nearly black ones, with a violet and green sheen to them like magpie wings, and dove-gray ones that are strewn all about the meadows, and startling golden ones with streaks of orange shot through them that burst forth like rays of sunlight. The elders, forgetting the ominous portents, drnk in the sight with joy, as they whisper - “flowers...”. Along with all the rest of us.

Everybody sleeps under the stars this night, in the fields, in the meadows.

May-August

We have forgotten ourselves in this land of fantasy. There used to be some few grudges, disagreements, among the villagers, but – but now...

September (it must be the 1st, but who can say for sure?)

Today. I look out the window. The flowers are dry and brown and withered, like old parchment. The land is back to the monotonous green, brown, and gray, and soon the green shall fade.

For summer is over.

The whole village files out of our houses, and we stand, somber, as if at a funeral. Nobody speaks. Even the infants in their mothers' arms are quiet, eyes wide and dark. The animals, uneasy, sniff about. A dry and bitter breeze whispers through pale crackling leaves and dead flowerheads. We shall soon have to live again. It will be another hard winter, like always, but if we work hard and the harvest is good, we may pull through to the heat of summer (alas, flowerless, for this joy comes only once in a thousand spice-scented and endless years). We will survive. We have, for generations. But our hour of ease and magic is over.

As I start the walk to the wheat fields, a faint scent of perfume stirs beneath me, and I bend to look at the last pale flower. Three tiny exquisite petals, two pale blue and one white as ice, striped with sapphire, and a dot of sunlight at the center. Even as I watch, it dries and shrivels up into powdery dust.

But the perfume lingers for many years -

until the next

summer

of

flowers.