Crimson Flowers

This week a brief episode containing an infernal regione. The story that’s following is called Crimson Flowers and it’s read into the public domain by Ben Tucker through LibriVox. Thanks to Ben and his production team.

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John Carew was working in his garden. Far away over the distant hilltops, the dying Sun hung like a huge paper lantern on an invisible wire. Against this background the small, bent figure of the old man resembled a spider weaving its web before the open gate.

Leaning on the hedge I spoke to him. “So you are at work again, Mr Carew. How are your flowers progressing?”

Dropping his shovel nervously he turned his yellow, shrunken face toward me. From the midst of the roses it looked like a misplaced sunflower. “So you have been watching me!” he cried, in a shrill quavering voice. “That is good, for people to watch me at work! It may teach them other things than gardening.”

“What, for instance?”

“Why life itself! The mind is a garden, my friend. What lies hidden there must spring to life. These flowers are crimson thoughts. See how quickly they grow into deeds, if I do not cut them each day? So must all men do if they would live in the sunlight. They must cut the crimson thoughts out of their gardens even as I!”

Once more he bent over his flowers, picking up the shears with grim satisfaction. He began cutting off their languid, drooping heads.

“But this must be a very wicked garden.” I said. “What is buried here?”

“Ah!” said he, “You would like to know that, eh? What a man my son was. You can have no idea! Such a sly one. Such a cruel one. Such a bloodthirsty one! Crimson thoughts were in his head continually, but now they grow nicely in my garden. He ruined me. He tortured me. He made my head revolve on my shoulders. Yes actually revolve, like a wheel! But now I have him here and he supports me in my old age. Each day I sell his thoughts – his evil crimson thoughts. What revenge that is. He lies there grinding his teeth because of it, and he can do nothing! Nothing! When the hangman was through with him, they gave me what was left for my garden. But have a thought lady! Have a crimson thought for a remembrance!”

So saying he rose and hobbled toward me with a single flower in his hand. A flower that glowed like a handful of the bloody sunset in the West.