Lived like that

Four days ago, they were the darkest pink. Tight knobs curled into themselves, not quite ready. We waited. And then they opened; they opened up. No holding back, no meekness, no concession to modesty. They were like five burlesque dancers in a quiet, curtained apartment. Everything else in our room faded.

They seem to know better than us that all you get is one show. The first show, the last show. One life and all that. They lived like that - even when they bleached away from that heated pink to the paleness of good paper. Even when they sagged like skin, and frayed like an old silk saree. God, they went with such grace! You dared not feel sorry.

I'm glad we saw them off before we left. Our bags are packed - we leave for our holiday soon. We're going to Sicily and a little cottage in the woods where all I want to do is Nothing. They tell me there's nothing like Sicily in the springtime.

I'm carrying one of my favourite books. And a sense of a place where volcanoes smoke, the Mediterranean sucks up the sky, and the sun sets like a crazy peony.