Image by Paul Cooper on Flickr
"What is this? Why did you bring this?"
Sophia pointed to the tattered shoes, which looked as if a tractor had run over them multiple times and were caked in a layer of mud too thick for even a firehose to penetrate. The sad soles, completely detached, flapped around like a bird with a broken wing.
"Of all things," she continued.
Doug could only shrug. Truth is, he didn't know how the shoes ended up in the U-Haul. Somehow these shoes always managed to sneak in with the other stuff, through each of the 6 moves he'd made in the past 7 years. They'd even followed him home from Goodwill. But of course he couldn't tell Sophia any of this.
He continued to unload the bins and boxes, ignoring the tension between them, which was spreading like a sheet of ice.
"And this!" Sophia interjected once again, shoving a letter into his hand. "Who's this Sakura?"
Sakura? He stared at the letter, puzzled. The mysterious foreign exchange student he'd met in tenth grade. He finally worked up the courage to write her a letter explaining his feelings—even taking care to translate it into her native language using Babel Fish—when, without warning, he discovered she'd returned to her home country.
But that letter had remained in a box in his parents' house, along with other relics like baseball cards, Pogs, and a busted up GigaPet. How did it make its way here?
As he pondered this question, one of the tattered shoes lifted its detached sole, like it was winking at him.
The sound of shattered glass cut through the air, temporarily dispersing the tension.
He let the letter fall and walked over to the origin of the sound.
Inside their new kitchen, the chandelier had crashed to the floor, splintering into thousands of pieces. Sunlight caught the shattered glass, bouncing around the walls in kaledeiscopic patterns. He felt dizzy, like he was on a tilt-a-whirl.
"My great aunt gave me that chandelier," Sophia said to him, letting the words sink in like the shards this beloved gift had now been reduced to.
He couldn't bother explaining that he hadn't touched the chandelier or the box it came in, and he had no clue how it ended up in the kitchen.
He could already hear her response: "You and your excuses. If I had a nickel for every excuse, I'd be a billionaire."
So now, he had to accept the possibility that perhaps on some parallel timeline, he had broken the chandelier, and prioritized that sorry excuse for shoes ahead of all the family heirlooms they'd had to leave behind, and sentimentally clung onto that letter for Sakura over the years, perhaps even secretly hoping it would cause a scene with Sophia and offer some excitement in his otherwise mundane existence...
As Doug pondered such existential musings, an elderly couple dressed in their Sunday finest approached them, carrying a vase. A gift for their new neighbors.
Doug tried to explain that this was not the best time, but their expression was so earnest that he knew he must at least accept their gift. But it was a very strange gift. A stem with the large bud of a flower, which resembled a clenched fist.
The old man handed Doug the vase, opening his mouth, but no sound came out. But Doug understood what he needed to do. He had to water the plant.
As he placed the pot under the faucet, and water poured into the soil, the fist unclenched before his eyes. The flower opened.
Larger and larger the flower grew, expanding rapidly as a balloon would. The petals were yellow, with pink fleur de lilies speckled perfectly throughout the base, as if they were painted on there.
The pattern took on increasing degrees of complexity before his eyes, taking on the swirls of a landscape painting, until he realized the pattern was identical to the one on his new living room walls. Tables and chairs appeared, along with the chandelier, only this one was fully intact.
As the flower continued to grow, Doug realized that he had to set it down, as soon it would be bigger than him. But he could not take his eyes away, he could not let go. Inside the petals, the shoes appeared, followed by the letter. They echoed these sentiments back to him.
We will not let go, they said.
As the room swayed and swirled around him, he latched onto them with his eyes. Everything around him became very still, and he sunk into the stillness, letting it fill him up.
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