Surprise

The Poppies Are Blooming

Minnie drove west through the stifling heat of a small southern California town. Music filled her car, and spilled out through open windows as she sped along winding roads. “The heart is abloom…it shoots up through the stony ground”… She was escaping work this day, and trying desperately to escape something else that had been rotting inside of her for years. Since spring rains had fallen, word had been out that the poppies were beginning to show. As she came around one particular bend she saw finally what she had driven miles for, a gentle sea of orange wonder. This was the best spot she and every other poppy admirer had found, to stand and gaze for a while at nature’s magnificent show. It only lasted for a short while, but while it did, so many from all over came to see. Minnie pulled over to a vacant spot, and strode casually toward the gently undulating crowd… He was a solitary man who enjoyed and relished his privacy. Working most of his life as an engineer had caused him to look at most things in a more practical way. There was not much practical he could find this day though, as he stood in a field of strangers. For four years now he had left his metropolis, and driven to a spot that after a good rain gave up a beauty that never failed to move something inside of him for good. His wife had after a brief illness died suddenly, and he wandering in grief for days had found with many others the healing orange tide. As he stood gazing, he could not help notice the young woman who’s hair seemed to rival the blooming flowers. She noticed his glance, and took a step towards him. “ They’re just everywhere aren’t they?” she half spoke in his direction. “ Yes, but even better from just over there”, he pointed. “ Minnie”, she said, and reached out her hand, and that’s how it began. Right then and there, the making of a bond was begun, and the two of them would share there among the poppies those things that lover’s only dream of. After several hours, and many stories an unusual pact was made between the two, and they went their separate ways. Every year from then on after the first spring rains Minnie would start to check her mail for a simple message from a mysterious man. “ The poppies are blooming”, was all it would say, but it need say nothing else. She knew what to do: drop everything and drive Year after year they met at the same spot to share what each had to offer. He the methodical engineer, she a redheaded muse both giving both receiving a mutual healing that would fortify and sustain them until they met again. Minnie was content in her respect for his privacy and did not seek him out beyond those hills. His faithful note was all she needed to keep her afloat and truly alive. Then one day it happened. Spring was on its way, she could feel it, but paging through the metro news that day she came across a picture and an announcement that seemed for her to stop time altogether. She had found him at last where she least expected to find him: In the obituaries. At first she could not breathe, and slid from her living room chair to lie and weep for most of an hour. Two weeks later came the rains, and she did not care. She walked through the day in a daze and hardly looked up. As she went through the mail, she almost missed it, the small now familiar envelope. Part of her refused to believe it, but then she tore it open, and saw the now familiar note. “ The poppies are blooming”, it said, but then underneath a new message, “ Do not despair”. Minnie ran for the car. * He knew he was dying, and in his last weeks before leaving this world, motorists along the winding country road would notice a solitary man standing in the fields. Before him stood a surveyors compass, and from time to time he would peer into it, scribble down notes, pack it all up, and wander into the hills, then return to peer some more. No one stopped to question, and no one really cared. * As Minnie came around the familiar bend that day, she saw a most unfamiliar sight. There were always many who stopped at this prime-viewing vista, but it seemed that day, all of humanity had arrived. Quickly abandoning her car, she strode briskly towards the crowd who seemed to all be gathered in a mass up on one particular hill, their hill. She could tell that they were all pointing in the same direction, and sounds of amazement filled the air. As she arrived in their midst, she turned and saw it herself. There up on the very hill they had gazed at for hours over the years were thousands of red poppies in the perfect shape of a heart.