KapWordz
featured story
A Gift For Petal download pdf
by joshua kaplan
aug. 29, 2019
"She spends too much time in that attic, don't you think?" Ken said, moistening his fingertips with his tongue and meticulously turning a page of the weekly local newspaper.
"It makes her feel safe." Nancy returned, her eyes focused on an accounting ledger she had brought home from the office. "She's 17. Still working her stuff out."
"Can't be healthy up there, what with the dust she's breathing in all the time." Ken replied, scanning the financial news and noting with satisfaction the uptick on his favorite investments.
"She likes the smell of my great grandmother's old books and dresses, and the feel of antiquity. Old soul, I think."
"Even so, too much pain for one so young." Ken's brow furrowed with sympathy at his indirect knowledge of the girl who spent too much time in the attic, his stepdaughter, and her tortured past.
"Do you think the counseling is helping?" Ken continued. "...And not because I give a half shit about the expense..."
Nancy lifted her head slightly and looked toward her husband, still analyzing wall street ciphers, and momentarily entertained the idea of defining 'mansplaning' to her partner. She only held the thought for a moment, quickly recognizing the futility of such an endeavor. She loved him and accepted his foibles, the least of which was certainly not his love of wealth. She knew that he would cede to any financial request, regardless of the security measures he placed upon his wallet, because he loved her as a man should his wife.
Nancy returned her gaze to the ledger, and saw nothing but memories. Ken was right. Her daughter Petal, younger of two girls, had endured far more than anyone should, let alone a little girl. No amount of counseling and drugs and distraction could erase the indelible scarring of adolescent abuse; one might only hope to strengthen the bridge over the emotional chasm torn into such a soul.
After a moment Nancy quipped, "I know you don't give a HALF shit, but what will you do with the other half?"
Ken laughed.
"Keep it for later. Never know when this old carnivore might need it." Ken continued chuckling, looking up from his paper and smiling warmly at his wife.
"You hungry?" Nancy offered, remembering that she hadn't eaten anything in the last 8 hours.
"I could eat." Ken patted his midsection, nicely embellished by years of desk work and persistent comfort.
"PETAL!! COME DOWN AND HAVE SOME DINNER!!" Nancy yelled toward the stairwell, hoping her daughter might hear just enough to be curious.
"You think she heard me?" She asked her husband, staring hopefully at the stairs.
"Don't know, but the fire department and SWAT are likely to show up soon."
***
Petal heard her mother, but like many women of her age decided to take some short amount of time to process it. She knew her mother's dinner bellow well, and she did feel some pangs of hunger, but still sat watching elegant motes of dust float lazily in the orange streaks of sunset peeking through the small arched window of the attic.
She day-dreamed of a time when she might have her own small space, like this one, filled with history and age and memory. She would work in such a space, filled with the aroma of fresh coffee, stale pulpy parchment, and lavender. She would sew and paint and love life, and be free of the damning anger, shame, and guilt that attached itself to her soul.
"It's so unfair..." She thought out loud, then to herself weighed the injustice of an innocent, any innocent, having to carry the ponderous weight of psychological trauma long after the events themselves.
But Petal was not the timid, wounded little girl many assumed. They thought her shy, but she was contained; they thought her indecisive, but she was patient; they thought her fragile, but she was indomitable.
She thought about her older sister, Dana, perfect Dana. Dana with the normal name and gorgeous figure and perfect life. Dana, with the handsome boyfriend, and college life, and uncluttered spirit.
"Bitch." She said, smiling. Though Petal envied her sister for these and many other things, she did not resent her. She loved Dana and would seek to injure anyone that tried to hurt her older sibling.
There was sadness in the thoughts, too. Sadness at the way their relationship had dulled since Dana's high school boyfriend had stolen a kiss from the younger sister at a party. The boy had told the elder sister that Petal was the one that had initiated the contact, but it was a lie. Dana had not wanted to believe her sister, choosing to side with her boyfriend, as such is the heart of a young girl in the throws of adolescent infatuation.
Petal had tired of trying to convince her sister that the boy was a liar, and took some small pleasure some time later at hearing that the relationship had ended when Dana caught him fondling another girl in the recesses of a classroom entryway.
Petal sighed, then rocked the old wicker chair she favored forward to gain some momentum to stand and address her mother's wailing.
As she angled her body to stand, a glint of golden caught her eye from a particularly dim and dusty corner of the attic, normally avoided due to the diminished space from the descending angle of the roof.
"hmmm, never seen that before..." She thought, and briefly weighed the discomfort of her mother's subtle ire at delaying dinner further. As was per usual with this one, curiosity won the day.
Petal only had to bend slightly to navigate the smaller space at the edge of the attic, as she was a smaller than average woman, standing only an eyelash over 5'.
Petal peered toward the space at different perspectives, careful not to shadow the area from what little light was still streaming through the window, trying to catch the reflection she had seen from the chair. The area was coated with dust and it was difficult in the waning light to differentiate between the various shapes. Then she found the perfect angle and saw the flash clear as day, and moved toward the source.
She crouched close and made out the shape of a small corner poking out from a folded cloth. The corner had a tiny metal hinge and clasp. That's what had reflected the light, she thought, as she reached her left hand out and retrieved the dusty thing.
Looking down at the item, she immediately noted that it was a cigar box, and she settled to her knees to examine it further. The box was of wooden construction, the top clearly warped, visible even through the thick frosting of neglect.
She blew at the bent top and simultaneously laughed and cursed herself for her stupidity, scattering decades of accumulated particles to envelope the immediate area.
Petal coughed and cleared the area with a few swipes, and more carefully removed much of the remainder with her hand.
The box was unmarked with anything other than the disfigurement of handling and storage, and though warped, the top swiveled easily as she opened it.
Inside was a folded piece of deeply yellowed paper, edges frayed, on top of which was a small set of wire-framed spectacles. Petal picked the spectacles up at the stem and studied them closely. They were old, that much was clear, and appeared to be of copper construction, with thick oval lenses, pocked with stain and weathering, and long graceful curves at the stems to hold them securely in place.
The curious young woman placed the old frames across the bridge of her nose, and wrapped the curved pieces around her ears, then looked about the attic. What had merely been dim before was now a slate of deep blurred grays with no discernable shapes.
Petal moved the glassed down her nose so that she might walk without the threat of imminent collapse and made her way to her great-grandmother's old wooden mirror, leaning against a chest of drawers along the wall.
She had used the mirror many times, so it did not show the coating of stasis predominant in her favorite hide-away.
Petal knelt before the old mirror and adjusted it with both hands to capture a good angle, and smiled.
"I look good." She said aloud, grinning widely at her image, now so much smarter, wiser and more worldly than before.
Then she readjusted the old frames to their proper position on her nose, and looked to herself again, supposing the same blurry result as before, but hoping that they were a bit better for near viewing. She was not greeted by what she had expected.
Her image in the mirror was as clear as if she were outside in the noon sun, contrasting starkly with the shadow of it's periphery. It looked as if her face was in a spotlight against a dark gray, curtained backdrop. She could not make out a single detail behind her image, which showed her the same face she had always seen; a sad, lonely little girl who was so much more than anyone else thought.
She saw her damage, so acute, but also the strength and courage she had discovered inside. Though she hesitated to admit it to herself, she liked what she saw. She just wished there were others who felt the same.
"PETAL!!!" Her mom screamed from below.
Petal sighed softly at her mother's impatience and moved the glasses back down her nose. As she walked to the trapdoor she remembered the old, yellow paper in the box and quickly retrieved it. She didn't spare a moment to look at it, folding it small enough to fit in the shirt pocket of her favorite red and black checkered flannel, which she wore daily over a t-shirt, and descended the hinged ladder to join her family for dinner.
***
"Hey, cool specs!" Petal's step dad Ken said to the diminutive figure as she walked into the dining room and sat in her normal seating assignment.
"Thanks. I found them in a cigar box in the attic. Can I have them, mom?" Petal asked her mother, who was busying herself with balancing several serving dishes on her way in from the kitchen.
"Have what?" Nancy asked, having missed what had been said a moment earlier, then looking up, "Oh, those old things? Sure, why not."
"Do we have one of those chain things to hold them around my neck, like the old ladies do?" Petal smiled. She liked the idea of looking like an old woman.
"I think we can find something that'll work." Ken said. "I believe I have one of those for fishing, so you don't lose your sunglasses in the drink. Not quite what the ladies are wearing these days, though."
"How does it keep the glasses from sinking?" Nancy asked her husband.
"It has a big cork on the back." Ken answered. "Like I said, not exactly what they're wearing in Milan."
"A dork cork. Nice." Petal blurted through a mouthful of mashed potatoes. "I can work with that."
"Dana's coming for a visit, Pet. She wants to see you." Nancy said, unintentionally changing the subject while carefully separating a bite-sized section of meatloaf from it's mass.
"Just to see me?" Petal said, her chin resting in her palm while she chewed, a regularity that annoyed her mother greatly.
"Will you stop that, please!" Nancy chastised her daughter. "Makes you look like a bobble-head."
"Sorry." Petal apologized. "Why does she want to see ME? You put her up to this?"
"Of course not." Nancy snapped. "Your sister loves you and is worried for you. Always has..."
"... Always will. I know, I know." Petal completed the sentence for her mother.
It wasn't the love part of that equation that gave Petal pause, but the worry. It tired her to be the source of pathos for those close to her; the sad looks, overt sympathy, and syrupy deference had gotten old quickly. She just wanted people to be happy around her; that is what made her feel better, not the persistent umbrella of pity.
"When is she gettin' here?" Ken prompted, eyeing suspiciously a chunk in the meatloaf he was unsure about. "Should I clear out my office and blow up the air-bed?"
Ken and Nancy had decided to convert Dana's room to an office for Ken when she had started her second year of college, based both on the adamant insistence of the older of the two girls that she need never again rely on someone else to live, and Ken really wanted a place to be naked and watch the golf channel.
"S'okay Ken, she can sleep in my room. No worries." Petal said, pressing an inverted fork full of mashed potatoes onto a tiny hill of gray-green baby peas. "Maybe some of her awesome will rub off on me... JUST KIDDING..."
"You're every bit as wonderful as your sister, Pet! Even she thinks so." Nancy said forcefully.
"Even SHE thinks so? Hmmm..." Petal mused, tapping her chin with an index finger. "Don't know why, but something about that statement makes me think I should be offended, or at the very least flick a pea at you."
Ken grinned at the prospect of hurtling food and poised a spoon catapult of mashed potatoes in the general direction of Petal's face.
"Go 'head... Make. My. Day." Ken channeled Clint Eastwood horribly.
At that precise moment, Nancy kicked her husband in the ankle so hard it made him drop his spoon and howl in pain.
"What was that fo..." Ken began, nursing his ankle, but stopped immediately upon seeing his wife's face. It was the look of a mother that was ready to remove from existence any threat to her charge. He understood immediately. He had jokingly threatened the young woman, and this was not a thing to joke about in this house. Ken knew this, but had slipped for just that moment. His eyes dropped in shame.
"I'm sorry Petal..." He said sadly, still staring down. "I didn't mean to..."
"MOM!" Petal yelled. "What the fuck! He was kidding! Stop treating me like I'm made of crystal. It's unhealthy."
Nancy stared at her daughter for a long, uncomfortable moment.
"Especially for Ken." She said, finally.
And the table erupted in laughter.
***
The next morning Petal woke up as late as she needed. It was Saturday, so there was no school, and her mom wouldn't let her get a job, so she could do exactly as she pleased. She raised her torso to rest on her elbow and retrieved the old specs from the nightstand, and placed them on her face. She had spent much of the night looking at her reflection in the dresser mirror, and had decided that the glasses would be a part of her daily armor, along with her checkered flannel and white chuck taylors, even though the eyewear was useless for anything but looking at yourself.
She couldn't explain why, but the glasses had proven ineffective for magnifying anything, even small text. The only thing she could see with them was herself. Even in the well lit bedroom, her reflection had been the only thing in focus. The posters and paintings, plushes and bedding, all appeared distant and blurred, a dark compound of it's various color and shape components.
She had experimented briefly with perspectives and found that at every angle only her face was normally reflected. Everything else the glasses considered beneath recognition.
"How... odd..." She had spoken aloud, moving the glasses off her face to test different distances against the reflection. Then she remembered the folded piece of paper that had accompanied the specs, which she then retrieved from the now hanging flannel.
Petal had unfolded the yellowed leaf, careful not to damage the somewhat brittle piece, and saw a message written in India ink, in the elegant hand of a day when handwriting was an art-form.
It had read...
"My Love, I gift you these glasses that were gifted to me so long ago, though they are not what you may expect. They will not help you to see that which is obvious, nor that which you believe to be so, but things hidden and secret; some of which will make your heart soar, and others which may leave you wounded, and even terrified.
For myself, I have chosen to leave this magic behind, for these spectacles have taught me that not every miracle is a gift, nor every truth a boon. But the most precious lesson was to see myself; that I am precisely as God intended me to be. As are you.
I pray you find the same beauty that I have seen, in yourself and in those you love.
And know that You are adored for all the things you believe unseen.
~Ggm"
Petal had sat for a long time digesting the contents, and wondering at the words. She wondered particularly at the signature; Ggm. Could it be Great grandmother? She thought. Were these meant for me? How is that even possible? I never even met my mom's grandma. Then she considered the odd dynamics of the glasses themselves and realized that what was 'possible' had been now rendered as an ambiguity.
The entire mental exercise had left her exhausted, and feeling as if a headache was coming on, so she decided to go to sleep and think on it in the morning.
Now it was morning, and she felt as confused as when she had laid down to sleep.
Petal grabbed the yellow note from the narrow drawer of her night-table and read it for the tenth time. Each time she did, she felt a little closer. To what, she didn't know. Understanding? Surely not. Acceptance? perhaps, but of what? The supernatural? Surely there was nothing in her high school physics texts that would support such sorcery. Experience didn't much lie, though, she thought. She had seen with her own eyes, even through an inventory of tests, that the glasses changed the reality of what was before them.
"What am I missing?" She startled herself at the sound of her own voice against the silence of her thoughts and snickered. Her mind then wandered to her Chem teacher, Miss Spiegel, and her mantra of 'scientific method.' She thought of how the beautiful and manic woman might shred her testing parameters, and chastise her for any conclusion based on prejudice.
"I've only tested on myself." She scowled at her mind's image of her teacher, scowling back at her. Not in anger, but with the determination of the driven.
"Good." The psychic figure replied. "...And?"
"...And I've only looked at a reflection." Petal replied aloud to the voice in her head.
'I pray you find the same beauty that I have seen, in yourself and in those you love.' The words droned in her head.
'...in yourself AND in those you love.'
"I need to test it on someone else's face." Petal spoke aloud again to her teacher, who's image smiled at her and disappeared as the sound of knocking chased the lovely scholar away to the young woman's memories.
"Hey sleepy head! Wakey wakey!" Petal heard the familiar and grating morning cry of her older sister, Dana, through the door.
"One sec!" Petal called to her, as she unwrapped her legs from the substantial bedding and sidled to the door.
Petal opened the door only an inch and peeked at her older sibling over the thick lens still adorning her face.
"We're busy. Try the neighbor's house." Petal shut the door and made an act of locking the door, doing so a half dozen times.
The younger of the two chuckled to herself, still leaning against the door. After several moments of hearing only silence, Petal stealthily turned the tiny deadbolt and as quietly as she could manage cracked the door to peek out.
Dana was standing facing the door, arms akimbo, staring tiredly at her sister's deep golden-brown iris.
"Aren't you here kind of early?" Petal muffled through the door, feeling amused at tormenting her sister.
"It's 2pm, dummy. You gonna let me in or do you have a boy in there?"
Petal opened the door and shambled to her bed. "I wish." She said, sitting cross-legged and facing Dana, who had followed her in.
Dana sat on the edge of the bed next to Petal, and put a hand to her sister's knee.
"How are you, Pet?" Dana looked warmly at the little girl she had known her whole life.
"Is this a hash-tag metoo moment?" Petal smiled and looked at the hand on her knee. "I'm fine. You shouldn't listen to mom all the time."
Dana self-consciously removed her hand. "Good, I'm glad..." The older sister looked away to hide the emotion that was welling within.
Petal sighed. Dealing with your own shit is a pain in the ass, she thought, but dealing with other people dealing with your shit is really a difficult thing to navigate.
She then remembered that she had so much to tell Dana. The glasses, the mirror, the note... Why had she become distracted?
Petal looked at her sister, who was still averting her eyes, and weighed how she might begin. She briefly entertained the notion of running the tests quietly without Dana knowing. Perhaps to keep the magic of the lens' to herself? That's selfish, she thought. The idea of what she might see when looking to her sister scared her a bit, as well. She decided she would begin with her story of discovery and maybe the slightly older woman would have some insight that would help.
"Dane... I have something... crazy... to tell you."
"Okay?" Dana replied, with hesitation.
Petal told the story of the magic glasses while Dana listened patiently, and when she finished the two sat silently staring at each other.
"I was wondering about the spectacles." Dana said finally. "They look good on you."
"That's what you got?" Petal blurted out incredulously. "After all that? They look good on you? I've half a mind to not let you use them and you'll never see for yourself."
"Okay, okay. Don't get all wound up. I just know you're screwing with me."
"Really! Okay Miss Perfect, have a look at the letter then." Petal challenged, using the sobriquet for her sister she was least fond of, and picking up the letter from the night table to hand to her.
"Please don't call me that." Dana said, not amused, and continued. "This handwriting is just beautiful... Ggm?" Dana looked to her sister with puzzlement.
"Great grandmother, maybe? That's what I was thinking." Petal answered. "It IS her stuff up in the attic."
"She died before she knew she was a great grandmother. Explain that."
"I can't explain any of it. And I imagine you will feel the same. Here. Take them and go look at yourself in the mirror."
Petal removed the unique copper frames and handed them to her big sister.
"Fine." Dana took the glasses from her sibling, walked to the dresser mirror, and fixed the glasses to her face.
Dana stared at her reflection for only a second when her mouth involuntarily gaped open. Petal watched her older sister repeat the same set of perspectives and angles she herself had, to test the specs' odd acuity.
"Oh My G..." Dana began, but halted the moment she turned from the mirror and looked to her sister, still sitting cross-legged on the bed.
The older sibling stood transfixed staring directly into her little sister's eyes. Dana's eyes began to well with moisture, her mouth quavered. Petal watched as her sister's hands began to shake, then her shoulders, and then her entire body wracked with sobs, as she covered her face with both hands.
Petal was frozen by the emotional display, but only for a moment. She realized quickly that Dana had first seen her own refection, and in amazement had turned to her and had seen Petal with the glasses, as well. And Dana had broken down harder than the young woman had ever seen her sister do in 17 years of life.
"Dane, what's wrong? What did you see?"
Petal's mind swirled at the possibilities. Did she see the future? Great grandmother seemed to have. Did she see the...thing... that happened to me? What could make her suddenly weep like that?
The older sibling, head down, shakily removed the lenses, walked to Petal and gave them back to her, hands still trembling.
"Words won't..." Dana's unsteady voice trailed off, matching her quivering hands, and still she could not meet her little sister's gaze. "...You have to look at me now."
Petal took the glasses, placed them easily on, as she had performed this simple exercise a hundred times now, and steeled her resolve to face what her sister had. If Dana could handle it, so could she.
Dana looked up to Petal, allowing the younger to see what her raw emotion had wrought upon her face, knowing well that it didn't matter a bit. Petal would see her big sister more clearly than she had ever before, as Dana had seen the younger. There would be no facades or vanity between them, ever again.
Petal lifted her eyes to meet Dana's and fell into a river of emotion. Her mind reeled at the sensation of being swallowed, in contact at every point of her core emotional responses. This with just a glance. The suddenness of it put her back on her heels, but she acclimated herself quickly and found her own emotional nucleus and grounded her inner self to it. She realized that what the glasses were showing her was not the familiar face of her sister.
What she saw, though it was far less visual than emotional, was herself through her sister's eyes, as Dana must have seen when she looked toward Petal.
She saw a deep respect that Dana had for her that Petal had no inkling of; Of the younger's great intellect, spiritual strength, and kind heart. She saw a great, swallowing fear that Petal would never fully recover from the horrors she had endured. She saw shame borne of so long wrongfully resenting her sister for a kiss and a lie. She even saw envy, which Petal thought curious. Dana believed her sister to be beautiful.
How crazy, Petal thought. Dana's always been the prettiest woman in any room she's entered, and she thinks I'm prettier than her.
But the most potent and pure feeling was love. The type of love that mother's felt for their own daughters. Petal never for a moment suspected Dana held such feelings.
I get it, Petal thought, still watching her sister cry softly. Dana saw how I feel about her. All the stuff I could have told her, but never did. Same as her.
Tears ran down Petal's cheeks as she removed the specs and reached for her big sister. The two embraced and wept as one.
***
Petal recovered quickly from the surreal experience, far more so than her sister. She watched Dana sob for a long while after the two had released each other from their contact.
She's overwhelmed, the younger thought. She's not equipped to handle this kind of stuff. Too much, too fast.
Petal had sailed the roughest seas imaginable and had arrived to port alive, she thought. Injured, certainly, but alive. No storm might sink her now.
"Dana, we need to talk about this." Petal intoned softly, her hand gently stroking her sister's shoulder blade.
"After this, what do we need to talk about?" Dana struggled with her words.
"Not about us. I mean about the glasses. You and I will be fine forever. You know that now, and so do I. Time to move on to the next item."
Dana looked up with stained cheeks and swollen eyes and smiled at her sibling. "We have magic fucking glasses."
"MAGIC FUCKING GLASSES!" Petal yelled, and leapt off the bed, arms raised over her head.
"Let's look at mom!" Petal erupted.
The older sister sat with her hands on her lap, and looked to her feet, the polar opposite of her excited sister. "I... can't. Seeing myself as you see me was all that I could handle. I don't think I could deal with mom."
Petal thought about it for a moment. "I understand. I think we already know how much we mean to her, and I don't think I want to see any darker stuff. Not in mom."
"...Some miracles are not a gift, and some truths, not a boon..." Dana said quietly.
"Wow, you actually read the letter! I thought you may have just skimmed it."
Dana looked up. "No. I just didn't know what to make of it. I'm not much for the sword and sorcery stuff, you know, and this is definitely sorcery."
"No doubt. How 'bout Ken, then?" Petal said excitedly.
"You can, if you want, but I wouldn't recommend it." Dana said thoughtfully. "What if he's attracted to you... sexually? You do look just like mom, and you'll feel it, up close and personal."
Petal stared wide eyed at her older, more experienced sister.
"What the hell is wrong with you? " Petal exclaimed, then seriously, "Wait... did he... come on to you?"
"No, of course not, but the glasses don't seem to keep anything back." Dana smiled, then jokingly, "...and don't you ever watch porn? There's tons of pervy step-dad stuff out there, and who do you think makes all that deviant stuff?"
"Step-dads." The two sisters said simultaneously, then laughed out loud together.
"So gross." Petal chuckled. "But you make an excellent point. Truthfully, I don't really care how Ken see's me... we're cool so long as mom is happy."
"Agreed. But I don't think you should use them at all, on anyone." Dana said flatly, no longer smiling and laughing. "Ever."
"Fine for you to say, but I need to see more." Petal replied matter-of-factly.
"Please, please be careful, then. The glasses scare me."
"I know, and I will." Petal assured her older but less adventurous sibling, the young girl's mind already piecing together the dynamics of what she might want to discover and how she might go about it.
I need to walk in a public place, she thought. But what might be gained by seeing strangers? How different might their feelings be about me than what I feel about them? No... I need to see people that know me... but not one's that I am attached to. No family...
"I'm gonna take 'em to school." Petal stated aloud, as much to herself as to her sister, who was sitting quietly digesting her own thoughts.
Dana looked up to Petal. "Are you sure? That might be a very bad idea." Dana pictured the emotional roller-coaster she had been swept into, multiplied by a thousand different adolescent faces, each uniquely complex and utterly different from her own grounded being. Petal had almost washed her away, alone. The beautiful, confident young woman doubted seriously her ability to handle any more without crumbling.
"You've always had close friendships and loving relationships with your classmates," Petal said, thoughtfully. "So I can understand how you might be afraid of that level of intimate contact, but you know I'm a loner. There aren't too many at school that have really ANY kind of power over me, mentally or emotionally."
"What about that Scott Phillips, then?" Dana's eyes narrowed slightly as she said the boy's name.
Petal felt an internal tremor at the mention of the young man she had esteemed since middle school.
"He is a big part of why I want to use them at school. Trial by fire, so to speak."
"Why? Why do you do this to yourself, this 'walk the hard mile' bullshit?" Dana replied, more forcefully than she intended.
"It's NOT bullshit. If you don't face your demons, then you are destined to cower at their feet, forever."
Dana roamed inside herself at the thought. She knew her sister was right, and that she was by far the stronger of the two of them. As a younger girl, Dana had resented this aspect of the younger, but now felt only gratitude, and even a certain safety, that such a brilliant spirit and courageous soul would love her so sincerely and without expectation.
"You're right..." Dana said quietly, "Just... again, be careful."
"You hungry?" Dana continued as she immediately brightened, now resolved to her usual cheerfulness. "If you can pull a fishbone through the tumbleweeds on your head, I'll take you to lunch."
"Deal!" Petal was famished. "Gimme 5 minutes..."
"Take ten, and NO GLASSES! You need to keep those crazy things safe!"
"Agreed." Petal understood the enormity of the possibilities and dangers should the magical specs be lost. "I'll leave them in the attic."
***
The next morning Dana said her goodbyes to the family, the hardest being to little Petal, which was tearful, so that she might return to college with a full day ahead for catch-up before Monday's lectures. Petal had spent much of her Sunday making notes and preparations for the upcoming experiment. She marked names and defined categorical similarities, wrote descriptive footnotes and outlined questions that only the mysterious frames might answer. Monday, she thought, will be the first time in a long while I look forward to a day of school.
Being Sunday, the young woman had asked her stepfather for a ride to the flea market to try and find a nicer lanyard to secure the glasses, but Ken had suggested they go to the sporting goods store for a set of athletic bands instead, which surely had to be better than the dainty, old lady stuff. Petal sardonically wondered if it had anything to do with the parking nightmare always promised by a visit to the popular weekend mart, but acquiesced to his suggestion anyway, thinking that the original desire to be cute was ponderously silly weighed against the importance and power of the glasses.
During the drive, Petal could not help but recall her sister's disquieting suggestion that the older man might have younger man type feelings, and was alternately driven to chuckle and repress revulsion. She didn't feel uncomfortable with him, however, as he had shown himself to be a kind and loving man, though a whiny bitch when it came to money. She had a soft love for him based on his feelings for and worth to her mother, Nancy, whom Petal would both kill and die for without hesitation.
The young woman reminisced of a time when the sisters were several years younger and had met and gotten to know Ken as a suitor for their mom, and Nancy had had a sit down with the two girls to assess their thoughts and feelings regarding the new romantic interest.
After much debate and discussion between the older sister and the mother, whereas Dana had cited every caution, loophole, pitfall, and painful possibility, the youngest of the three finally spoke.
"Shut up Dane." Petal had offered coldly, then to her mother. "Do you love him?"
"Yes..." Nancy had answered shyly, somewhat embarrassed.
"Is he a danger to you or to us?"
"Absolutely not!" Nancy flared, not angry but passionate. "He's a gentle soul."
"Does he love animals?" This was a very important question to Petal.
"Well, he love's dogs, for sure." Nancy chimed. "Not sure about cats."
"Guess that'll have to do. You can keep him, at least for a while." Petal stated as law. "Just remind him that if he hurts you I will puncture his carotid with a number two pencil... in his sleep."
"uh... okay... I will." Nancy said, eyes wide. "... And thank you...? "
"A dull number two pencil." Petal had finished, and with that, declared in no additional words that the discussion was over. She then had gotten up and walked back upstairs to her sanctum of dust and memory while the other two had stared at each other in silence, awed and slightly scared at the youngest and smallest family member's raw potential energy.
Petal smiled at the pleasant memory as she stared at the landscape, racing past her car window.
Returning home, Petal thanked her step-dad for the ride, useful suggestion, and credit card, then ran up to her attic to fit the new athletic straps to the glasses, and be ready for a very important day ahead.
***
Jacob Kurtzberg School of Arts and Sciences was not like other, much larger cookie cutter high schools produced for the large metropolitan population, but still entertained and educated over five hundred students, but these also included attendees of the middle school.
Petal stood at the wide cobblestone path, looking up at the school's main entrance, and smiled with cold determination. To the detached and sleepwalking, she looked precisely as she always had; red and black checkered flannel, white t-shirt, blue jeans, and white high top chuck taylor kicks, laces loose and hanging off like dirty mop strands. They wouldn't notice even the obvious change; the golden, delicate specs dangling across her collarbone, let alone the added spring and pace of her step, or the slight tilt of her head, or even the smile.
She was ready. Whatever the glasses might throw at her, she could handle it, as she believed that every harshness one had to endure was as the tempering hammer of the blacksmith to the steel of one's soul.
Her final thought before she walked inside came involuntarily through her throat...
"Scott Phillips"
***
Scott Phillips was a handsome young man, a natural progression from being a handsome boy, which is the first thing Petal noted of her classmate. But of course, she was not alone. The secret desire of more than few young girls, the man-child boasted sparkling blue eyes, wavy golden hair, and the musculature of an athlete. He was also clever, at least by middle school standards, charming, and funny.
When he and Petal were classmates in middle school, they sat next to each other in several classes and he wooed the pretty, shy girl with comments of pleasant aromas, and liking her braids. When she sat next to the boy she felt like she was the only person who existed to him, so sincere his warm advances and quiet chatter. This went on throughout middle school and into high school. But this was before the event that had almost destroyed her, before she had missed half a year of school. Fortunately, she had been an advanced student, elevated to the older class, and this only pushed her back to her own age group.
When she returned, things had changed. They were no longer in the same classes, so when Scott might see her in the hallway, he did not acknowledge her as he had before. He would respond with a friendly smile and kind word if greeted, but was visibly unnerved by what he and other students had heard of her ordeal, and would seem to avoid her whenever possible. This had put Petal into a funk, but what most did not appreciate was that whatever disappointment might exist in the small woman's life, it was less than nothing when compared to her recent trauma.
Petal thought about the simple rapport she used to share with the lovely young man; the jokes and chuckles and flirting, and ultimately the crushing realization of feelings unreturned. Well, she thought, crushing to some. Little Petal was a flower that could not be crushed.
Petal walked down the hallway of her school, wanting to put the glasses on, but holding back until she found Scott. He would be first, just as her list indicated, and after she would decide if and how she would proceed.
Baby steps, she thought. Don't get ahead of yourself and overconfident. I might be the best equipped to deal with psychic trauma, but my mind is not indestructible. I don't want to end up in the cracker factory for the rest of my days, wearing pajamas to every meal.
Then she saw the object of her childhood fantasies and recent scientific inquiry. Leaning nonchalantly against his locker, holding court with several female underclassmen laughing too hard and flipping their hair; one very tall, very handsome, very blonde, very very Scott Phillips.
"Hi Scott." Petal said, walking up to the small group, then turning, "Hello ladies."
The small collection of teenagers became silent immediately, all turning to the tiny figure and freezing.
"Awkward." Petal intoned, smiling softly. "Sorry to interrupt. I won't be long."
Then she lifted the incredible specs to her nose, and pushed them up the bridge until she could see Scott in the glaring truth of the magical frames.
The two old friends, now relative strangers, looked into each other's eyes; his bewildered, her's burrowing and unflinching.
The only visible notion that Petal had been impacted by what she saw was a slight involuntary exhalation, which no one noticed but she. They also did not see the psychic gut punch that she had just weathered which had caused the veiled escape of her insides. They did not see her desire to throw up, to run, to spit in the boy's face. They did not see her building rage, nor would they ever. She would not show them her underbelly.
As for the young girls there, she didn't really care what they saw or didn't see. She knew them all, and had no real regard for any of them. They were artless sheep. But the boy, she cared what he saw, and thought, and felt. At least she did, before the glasses told his story.
The most dominant and powerful emotion she felt was his disgust. Petal was a broken toy, once possibly useful as a potential cock glove, now not even worthy of a blow job. She 'saw' his contempt for the time he wasted being nice to her and the embarrassment he felt for ever thinking she would be good to use. She 'saw' his sense of himself in comparison to her, and he was as a God. Equally disturbing to her was of what he didn't see. He was blind to her intellect, which dwarfed his own, and her humor, and creativity, and kindness. He did not see one thing in her that made her who she was.
"Thank you, Scott." Petal said at last, removing the specs and appearing completely unaffected. She felt that far more time elapsed than had actually occurred, but that was part of the magic of the frames. One might spend hours in a gaze, but remove them to find only moments had passed.
"Uh... You're welcome? You feelin' okay Pet?" Scott said, turning to his entourage smiling. They all smiled back.
"Yup. Never better." Petal turned on her heel and began to walk away.
"Wait... Did you do that to show Scott your glasses?" One of the sheep bleated mockingly. "Oh, she loves you Scott! That's so adorable."
The sheep chuckled together at the stupid little broken girl.
Petal stopped, tilted her head back towards the flock, and considered letting them have their fun at her expense.
She decided against it.
The small young woman turned methodically and walked to within inches of the antagonistic girl, who stood 6 inches over Petal, and stared her simple challenge to the larger classmate.
The larger girl backed up several inches, her arms raised in defense of what might next happen.
"Hey, I don't want to mess with a crazy girl..." She said, trying hard to maintain her cool in front of her friends. The truth was that she looked into Petal's eyes and was very afraid.
"Apparently you do..." Petal replied without emotion, and moved to close the extra distance the other girl had created.
"Easy there, Petal." Scott commanded, and put his hand on her shoulder. "She was just jo..."
Before the tall young man could complete his sentence, Petal whirled to her left and with all the quick force her raging little form could generate by driving her legs, inserted her right thumb just under his 10th rib, separating muscle tissue from bone, precisely as her mother had taught her. Nancy was a 3rd level Sifu and practitioner of Wing-Chun, and though she could never elicit the same excitement and passion in her daughters that she herself had for the ancient Chinese martial art, they both enjoyed the lessons that involved crippling and maiming stronger opponents.
Petal had learned well.
Scott Phillips crumbled to the floor, howling and clutching his left side.
Petal looked coldly at the writhing figure, noting with satisfaction that he would nurse an ugly and unusually large cream and purple bloom along his torso for two and half weeks at least. He would feel it for far longer.
She turned her attention back to the flock of sheep.
"Oh shit..." One bleated, and the flock scattered to the wind, their shepherd no longer standing sentinel.
Petal turned back to the stupid boy, still moaning on the ground, but now she thought she saw tears.
"Hash-tag metoo, Scott. Don't you go on the Internet?" Petal inquired sweetly. "Oh... and next time you put your disgusting hands on me it'll be your ball sack. It'll require surgery."
Both knew it was no exaggeration.
***
Petal made her way through the crowded hallway among hushed tones and staring eyes. She saw amazement, confusion, and the excited joy of mean children who reveled in the pain of others. She saw herself the focus of at least a dozen phone cameras, and wondered if someone might have caught the entire episode. She might need verifiable evidence that Scott was the instigator, as she was certain that the sheep had all run terrified back to the barn to bleat their complaint to the head farmer.
The young woman applied all of her energy to focus her mind on the glasses and the experiment, and not on the emotional upheaval she had just experienced, but it was there, she knew, along the periphery of her thoughts just waiting for a moment of weakness.
Might as well head right to the office, she thought. They're gonna come and get me anyway.
She considered putting the glasses on along the way to the Vice Principal's office, a path and place she knew well, but thought against it, still needing time alone to process the truth of Scott Phillips. In her mind she ran through the likely scene she would wade into; the sheep telling impassioned lies, the Vice Principal, Dr. Luck staring at her with his patented look of disappointed condescension. Scott wouldn't be there, she knew. He would be taken to the hospital for fear that he was stabbed, which is surely what he would claim. No way would he cop to the fact that a 95 lb broken little girl dropped him like a sack of wet mulch, with only her thumb.
Petal walked in through the door of the school's disciplinary overseer and eater of hope, Dr. Luck, and saw exactly what she imagined. The entire flock was there staring angrily at her from the seats along the wall, muttering profanities to each other. Dr. Luck's assistant, Mrs. Delgado, was sitting at her perch, head shaking in irritation at having to do her job, filling out the paper work likely generated by Petal herself. There were several other students unrelated to the dust-up also in attendance, one of whom Petal considered a friend; Jonah Wilkins.
Dr. Luck was with the other group of students, in the glass partitioned section which he used as his own space, looking at their phones and listening to excited commentary. The conversation was not discernable thanks to the silly noise machine Mrs. Delgado used as a means to mask her superior's systematic verbal weathering of children's spirits, but Petal heard one thing clearly...
"THAT'S BULLSHIT!"
It was little Jonah Wilkins, and he was holding his phone out to Dr. Luck and pointing out something as he explained. The school's second highest ranking educator nodded his head, placed his hand on the young man's shoulder and said something. Jonah nodded his head back in affirmation.
Mrs. Delgado had finished her archiving of the misdeeds of children, and looked to Petal, who was seated quietly and still staring at the scene through the glass partition.
"I'm very disappointed in you, young woman." The mature administrator said after a moment of glaring. "I know you've been through a lot, but you ca..."
"You don't know shit." Petal stared daggers at the woman.
"Hmmph..." Mrs. D scowled back, and aggressively punched a button on her intercom, sending a crimson fingernail extension flying. "She's here Dr. Luck, and in rare form."
"Thank you, Mrs. Delgado." The intercom crackled to all in attendance.
"You're gonna get yours, you crazy bitch!" One of the seated sheep flared venomously at Petal. "I hope they throw you out of school!"
"And into the fucking looney bin!" Another joined.
"LANGUAGE, ladies!" Mrs. Delgado chastised, fuming over Petal's disrespect and the ugly fingernail stump on her left hand.
Before the third could collect her thoughts enough to add to the hateful assault without angering Mrs. Delgado, the door to Dr. Lucks transparent cage opened, and the collection of occupants made their way out, exchanging glances with the seated. One boy shrugged at the sheep as he hustled by. The last out was Jonah. He looked at Petal and smiled his toothy grin she had known since she was a much younger girl, then gave her another of his quirky trademarks, a big thumbs up.
Petal smiled back, not aware of what had transpired, but feeling lifted anyway. She had not considered Jonah as one of her subjects for experimentation, but they were friends. She wondered to herself why it had not occurred to her earlier.
Jonah and Petal had traveled the same academic path for many years; elementary, middle, and now high school. He was a small boy, and poor. This combination made him an easy target for bullies, and Petal had zero tolerance for bullies. She had intervened for the only slightly taller boy on several occasions, and had even fought to illustrate her disdain.
The truth was Petal felt sorry for the boy, so she shared lunch items with him, and the occasional coin to get a treat. She didn't think anything of her small generosity, just a sadness that a happy little boy would have to walk such a difficult path.
As they matured a bit, Petal delighted in his sense of humor and good nature, and the two often got the giggles when seated next to each other in class. He was also a wonderful artist, having a talent for capturing a likeness using only simple lines, and had caricatured Petal many times. Her favorite was a drawing he had done of her as a tiny wonder woman, with armor, bra, and shield wrapping around her like an igloo. She still had it hanging in her room.
They did not socialize outside of school, but she considered him a friend, and that was rare company.
Dr. Luck stood by his door as the first group filed by, patting Jonah on the back as he left.
"Can we leave now?" One of the sheep asked Dr. Luck.
He had heard their story before Petal had come in, and it did not quite jive with a highly credible account, since presented. He wasn't about to let them off the hook that easily.
"No. You three stay there. We'll speak again in a few minutes." Dr. Luck sounded null of emotion, but then turned toward Petal and smiled. The sheep grumbled to their shoes.
"C'mon in, Petal." Dr. Luck said, far less strained than the young woman expected. "Have a seat."
Petal nodded as she walked in and sat down, placing her hands easily on her knees. She wasn't even a little nervous, and she wondered if she should be. Truth was, she didn't care. The asshole Scott had put his hands on her to control her, and this was not something that was okay.
"Tough day, huh?" Dr. Luck commented lightly, still smiling as he took his own seat.
"Not really." Petal lied, but just a little. The school official was referring to the altercation itself, and not what had catalyzed it. It had been extremely tough to see herself through Scott Phillips' eyes, but that was none of Luck's business. The rest of it was fun.
"Want to tell me what happened?"
***
Petal had explained in simple detail each specific aspect leading up to and resulting in Scott Phillips' school trip to the ER.
Dr. Luck had listened patiently, and when she had finished, he thanked her in a manner more sincere than normal, and asked her to wait in the outer office, with Mrs. Delgado. The safety officer, Officer Steele, who had just returned from dealing with the daily morning middle school scuffle and talking to another high school boy, was also there waiting to speak with Dr. Luck.
"Hey Dr. L," The burly, but not unattractive female law-enforcement officer began. "Reviewed the recording with the boy... Jerome?"
"Jonah..."
Petal tilted her head at hearing her friend's name.
"Sorry, Jonah... First, let me get this story straight." Steele said. "According to what Jonah told me, these three claim that the little one here flirted with the blonde boy, then attacked the three girls, then stabbed the big blonde kid when he stopped her. That about right?"
"Pretty much. Want to add anything, girls?" Dr. Luck asked the sheep. They all sat mute, staring at the floor.
"Well, There was no knife, or anything else." Officer Steele confirmed what Dr. Luck had seen as well, which is why he had sent Jonah to find her. "She hit the blonde kid with her right hand, AFTER he grabbed her. The little one never raised her hand to any of these girls, either. They all appear to be lying. Except this one, I imagine." She pointed to Petal, whose straight mouth curled up just a bit at one corner.
Then one of the sheep rose her head in defiance.
"She was gonna attack me! Everybody saw it!" She pointed her finger accusingly at Petal.
"That's not what you said in my office." Dr. Luck corrected, calmly. "You said she DID attack you, which was why Scott had to pull her off."
"She threatened me!"
"She stood in front of you." Officer Steele joined. "And you lied about it to get her in trouble."
The angry girl averted her eye's from the safety officer's glare, and directed her angst to her shoes.
Petal watched the scene unfold in front of her as if she were floating above.
Officer Steele turned to Petal and said seriously, "Do you want to press charges against the boy for assault?"
"Of course not." The young woman said without hesitation. As much as she now hated Scott Phillips, she didn't want to ruin a boy's life just because he was an asshole.
"Okay." Steele said, then to Dr. Luck. "We done here, Dr. L?"
"Appears so, Officer Steele. Thank you." Luck turned to Petal. "You can go home if you need to. I'm sorry for this stuff."
"Nah, I'm fine." Petal smiled, standing, then turned to the three seated girls, showed each her middle finger individually, and walked out of the office, chin high.
***
Petal walked down the now mostly empty hallway thinking of the classroom she would have to walk into late. The closer she got the heavier the weight she felt at her discovery of the true Scott Phillips. She approached the classroom, began to lift her arm to gain entry, and glided past the door as if her legs had their own agenda. Her eye's began to well with tears, and she fought hard against the developing deluge, but she knew this was a losing battle. She ducked into a recessed section of the wall which branched into a lounge and connected bathrooms and sat in a corner next to a large plant, her knees to her chin, arms around her legs, and started to sob.
"Hey." A familiar voice intoned. "Kinda dangerous sitting near a plant next to the restrooms. Some of the guys here are too stupid to realize there are toilets behind the door."
Petal looked up and saw her friend Jonah smiling over her. The cheerful young man swung his enormous and extensively-traveled backpack off his shoulder and set it to the side, and plopped down next to the sad girl.
"You stalking me?" Petal joked, as she wiped moisture from her cheek.
Jonah's face changed slightly at the absurd suggestion. His eye's narrowed a bit and darted away, his hands gripped his pant legs, his shoulders tensed, all of which was not lost on Petal. She saw everything, even in her emotional state.
"Just kidding, silly." She said, not wishing to offset the kind boy. "Hey, what were you and Luck talking about in his office? And Steele said she talked to you, too... Did you see the fight?"
Jonah's face brightened. "HA! That was no fight, that was a bug getting squashed! Greatest thing I've seen in real life! Got it all on vid, too."
"The whole thing?" Petal asked. "What were you recording in the hallway on a Monday morning?"
"Just stuff, you know, for character reference..." Jonah looked away. He could not admit to her the truth.
Petal looked at her long time classmate and realized that it was he that had redeemed her from the lies of the sheep, and whatever spin Scott might put on it to local law enforcement.
"Did you post it?" Petal said, suddenly worried over the peripheral fallout.
"Nah." Jonah said to his feet. "Didn't think you'd appreciate it..."
The little broken girl looked at her friend over her upper arm, still wrapped around her leg, then abruptly straightened up.
"Did I show you my new glasses?"
Jonah looked to the pretty little girl as she fitted the old specs to her face.
Exactly as she had experienced with Scott Phillips, so did she now. The same involuntary tightening of the abdomen, same expressed air from inside, but for a wholly different reason.
Petal had never seen herself as she saw now. Had never even imagined. She was... breathtaking.
The small young woman, in this poor boy's eyes, was a most beautiful thing to behold. Brilliant, funny, kind; He saw the things in her that she thought she saw in herself, and greatly exaggerated, yet was blind to the damage others assumed. She saw his enormous gratitude; for every coin, every time she stood up to bullies for him, for just being a friend. She saw the ripples of every kindness she had done him, every smile. She saw how aggrieved he had been when she had been victimized, and how angry and helpless he had felt that he had not been there to save her. As with Scott, she saw how the boy felt about her in comparison to himself, but in this story, she was the Goddess, he the parishioner.
He loved her.
Petal felt as if every fissure torn into her sense of herself by Scott and been filled by Jonah. Every doubt, assured; every darkness, alit.
She also felt some small shame that she did not see him in the same glorious light in that he saw her, and even a little embarrassed, because he saw things that were manifestations, or exaggerated to the point of fiction. But she understood this. She had projected an entire human being of worth and purpose into Scott's skin suit, and that was a ponderously absurd concept.
Petal removed the glasses and stood up, then leaned over and kissed a still sitting and significantly stunned Jonah on the top of his head.
"You've always been a good friend, Jonah. Thank you."
Jonah sat unmoving, and stared after her as she walked away. He wanted to say, 'hey no problem, anytime, that's what I'm here for, that's what friends are for, it's all in a days work, I get by with a little help from my friends, and a dozen other silly things, but mostly he wanted to say, 'I love you, Petal.'
Nothing came out.
He knew he would never have the courage. He didn't know that he wouldn't need it. He had already told her everything, and it had healed her.
Petal stopped at the opening to the main hallway and turned back to the sitting boy.
"If they don't arrest me, maybe tomorrow we can have lunch together. I'll find you." Petal turned without placing the weight of a response on the now slightly addled young man.
"Um... O... Okay..." Jonah began, but the object of his muse had already gone beyond earshot.
***
As Petal walked down the hallway she felt a new resolve, and that she was on the edge of something important. She couldn't put it into words, and it might just be the adrenaline now coursing through her circulatory system, but it felt very powerful and personal.
The small woman checked her wrist watch, and prepared herself for the coming psychic stampede she had decided to wade through. She felt she was ready now for anything.
"Okay, maybe not ANYTHING..." She said aloud, then to herself; But I can handle whatever these tater-heads throw at me.
As the thought completed, the familiar, harsh sound of the school bell erupted, making Petal start slightly.
She put the glasses on and waited. She didn't wait long.
In crescendo, the symphony of class change began. Doors opened almost in unison, followed by hundreds of voices and twice as many hurried footsteps as the periodic cacophony began to echo through the concrete halls. Petal stood in the middle of the hallway and faced the coming tsunami head on.
It hit her like a 100 foot wave of solid light, but she only gave a half step back. Every student that passed had to look at her for just a moment for the glasses to do their work, and since she was in the middle of the current, that was most of them.
She was initially assaulted by a myriad number of blank reflections, faceless females replacing her own unique features, but she acclimated herself quickly and things became more focused.
In many, those that knew her or knew of her, she saw the sad little damaged girl to be pitied, or reviled. In some she saw the envy of girls that considered themselves less pretty, and the disdain of those that considered themselves above comparison. She saw the enormous pressure of sexual desire in young men, and the less aggressive yearning in young women. Mostly, though, she saw indifference... Like corn in Nebraska; rows and rows and rows to the horizon. What she saw the least of was anything that really resembled who she was. She had seen that in great detail in Jonah's eyes, or at least a version of it.
Each face she saw, she realized, was the center of it's own universe. Each with it's own prejudices and expectations, perspectives and scope. When people looked at her, much of what they saw was something in themselves, or in something related to their own experiences, not little Petal at all. She wondered how much of this short-sighted limiting she had been guilty of. Who did SHE really know or understand? She understood her sister Dana now, and Jonah, but she had needed the glasses for that.
Some few of the faces reflected a general love and caring, these being the rare friend that hurried past. She was processing so much visual and emotional stimuli she didn't even hear them when they greeted her. One friend, a girl named Luann, had even stopped and asked her if she was okay. Petal had to fracture her focus to answer, which she had with a smile and a simple "Yeah."
Some of her teachers had appeared at their classroom doors, to greet the next wave of kids, and had looked questioningly at the tiny, lone figure not busying herself with some purpose or distraction, standing in the middle of the hallway.
These reflections were more complex than the others.
She saw sex coupled with shame in some of the male teachers, and in one the shame was absent. She made particular note of that teacher. He had a rep for being creepy with the girls, so Petal was not surprised. She saw stoic professional and moral dedication in another male; a very plain, shy older biology teacher who was the target of much humiliation and general disrespect. Petal was surprised that a man she thought aloof and uncaring to be a soul so pure.
In the women, Petal saw maternal tides emanating in different concentrations. She saw some small jealousy at the small woman's svelte figure and youth, but also an empathy that made her teary. These women have suffered, too. Greatly. One had buried a child, and the abyss behind her eyes was frightening. Yet this beautiful spirit still had so much love for every other mother's child it gave Petal chills.
Another woman reflected a bitterness born of an ungratified existence, resentful of young lives that would go on to great things and happiness. Not surprising that she was among the most disliked within the student population. Her disdain for life reflected a dark pleasure in knowing of the broken little girl's painful existence. This was a deeply damaged individual, Petal thought. The general consensus was that she was a drinker. Now Petal knew why.
As the hall emptied, and Petal was left alone, she took the glasses off and let them rest across her collar bone. She had weathered the psychic storm, and she was proud of herself. She inhaled deeply and walked to her next class, Chem with Miss Spiegel. Wouldn't she be impressed at the data sample her student had drawn on before arriving at a conclusion, though she would surely chastise for experimenting on oneself.
For only a moment, Petal considered using the specs on her favorite teacher, running her thumb and forefinger over the curved stem as she walked, but decided against it. She realized that there was a moral component to looking into another person's mind and heart, and she had no right to do so. She would remember forever the dedication of the biology teacher, and the matronly love of the woman who will forever mourn her offspring, and she felt shame for not realizing sooner that she had been a trespasser.
She knew, though, that she would be forever changed by this voyeuristic act, that she would always try to be as these two; To attain a level of humanity that was isolated from one's own experiences. No matter the pain, or the humiliation brought about onto these shining examples of our species, they would be forever as they were now; Beautiful beyond language.
From the students, including Scott and Jonah, she learned that no person can know you well enough to truly define you, that all her wondering and caring and stressing over what another person might think about her was utterly wasted energy and time. People too often saw what they wanted to see, making easy sight judgements and completing complex pictures with simple palettes extracted from unrelated experience. She knew she could not correct the way people might see her, but she could change how she saw people.
She understood now why Great grandmother had given up the specs. The lesson they taught was harsh and joyous, both, but should be temporary. Looking at people's souls was for God, not her children. We may only peer into our own, for that is the only one we may understand.
***
That evening, when Petal's mother came home from work, accounting ledgers in hand, her youngest had been waiting for her in the living room.
"Oh... Hi, Pet." Nancy intoned happily. "What gives? They close the attic for fumigation?"
"Ha. You funny." Petal smiled. "Just wanted to ask you some stuff."
Nancy sat down on the couch next to the young woman she had known every moment of the child's life.
"Okay, shoot. Hey, where are your cool glasses?"
"Got tired of 'em, I guess. Tell me about Great Grandmother."
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything."
"Okay, well... interestingly enough she was a small woman, about your height, and feisty as hell!"
Petal liked the story already.
~end
***
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