Every now and then a hand reached across my view, pulling a wrapper from the top of the stack. Each time, the fluorescent light on the ceiling grew brighter and clearer. I never knew what detriment it was to be stuck at the bottom of a stack of cellophane wrappers; and as the top of the stack shrank shorter and shorter, I never knew I could see so clearly: flowers were not colored balloons.
Eventually a human hand slipped me from the wooden counter and pulled me out into cone shape, slipping thorny stems near my delicate skin. A silver ribbon cinched me snugly against the thorns, and I held my breath, longing suddenly for the days of blurry fluorescent lighting. Embracing the stems, I was shoved against other wrappers, held in a bucket, wet and crowded.
Not long after, I found myself between the smooth fingers of a man in a suit. He laid me carefully on top of his briefcase in the passenger seat of his car as I marveled at my speed and surroundings. Trees! Clouds! Wildflowers!
The car slowed and I nearly tumbled to the floor before the man caught me. We entered an elevator, climbing till it chimed at our destination. I bounced lightly, upside down, against his briefcase as we approached a dark wooden door.
He knocked. “Charlotte?”
Charlotte opened the door.
“I brought you these,” he said, holding me out toward her.
Charlotte grimaced. She grabbed ahold of me and closed the door before he could continue speaking.
Laying me on the counter she untied the ribbon and pulled the stems from inside my protection. She left me wet and wrinkled on the counter while she cut the ends off the stems and placed the bouquet in a vase.
She then swept the stems that were left on the cutting board into the trash. She rinsed the scissors and placed them back in the drawer. She picked up the ribbon and folded it smoothly, placing it in the drawer with the scissors.
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