Work Text:
The Bureau’s newest flower garden is nearby.
Shalom passes by a fourth corridor. As opposed to the third corridor’s side kitchen and dining area, this one is labeled as storage. Pantry too, she learns when a hanging sign catches her eye.
She recalls the staff member’s directions—from the Recreation Area, take the first right-hand exit and go five hallways down.
“You can’t miss it,” they had insisted.
She could see why.
Several clear glass doors line the fifth corridor. The Outdoor Activity Area in all its glory, set in a wide spacious room underneath a stimulated blue sky. As Shalom walks to the closest door, it automatically slides open.
A warm, humid heat latches onto her skin. The outdoors indeed.
It doesn’t take long to find the garden beds. In front of her eyes are pockets of both bright and muted colors, strangely melodious in their clashing palettes. A patch teeming with purples and whites steal her interest, and she kneels to admire them.
The sound of a sliding door and approaching footsteps break the serenity. Shalom rises smoothly as the energetic steps draw near. She adopts a gentle demeanor, collecting her hands in front with a loose grasp.
A young freckled girl beams. “Hi, I haven’t seen you before. What’s your name?” A cowboy hat hangs behind her neck, its string entrapping two short blonde braids. “I’m Pepper, the biggest rascal of DisCity!”
“Shalom.”
“Shalom,” she repeats studiously. An upbeat energy washes away the focused brows, and Pepper cheerfully extends a gloved hand out. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Shalom!”
Under the fierce artificial sunlight, the spots of dark brown staining her work glove turn glaringly obvious. Shalom’s hands remain clasped together as her eyes flick from the glove to the awaiting and expectant face. Expectation droops into surprise when Pepper glances down.
“Oh, sorry!” Pepper begins to tug the glove off with her other hand, but a quick reply halts the effort.
“It’s quite alright.” Shalom returns her attention to the flower bed. “The flowers are growing well.”
“Aren’t they? I’ve been hard at work weeding and fertilizing them!” Pride fills her voice. “It makes my day when I see someone enjoying them.”
“Taking care of a dozen beds is no easy feat.”
“Say,” Pepper starts, “Miss Shalom, let’s do today’s weeding together! It’ll be faster with two. Here!” A second pair of fished-out tanned gloves tidy up her offer.
Shalom gives a light chuckle. “Flowers don’t exactly like me.”
“Not to worry, I’ll get them to like you! I’m the Bureau’s biggest, baddest, and bestest farmer,” she asserts and enticingly waves the gloves again.
They’re a perfect fit.
“There are some weeds that need to be taken care of. Fast growers,” Pepper points at the bits of green sprouting between the white and purple flowers, haphazardly scattered about and notably of a different variety. “Here, try tending to this daisy!”
Over thirty weeds surround the flower.
Shalom plucks the weeds out, dirt darkening the tanned work gloves. She handles the task with precision, habitually pathing out an optimal route for efficiency, and settles into the routine motions. Weeding is a first for her despite the countless flowers planted before; it takes more physical strength and stamina than she had imagined. By the thirty-third weed, Pepper has already finished an entire bed’s worth of flowers and crouches down to observe the finishing touches with boundless glee.
“Oh, that’s the last one!” Pepper cheers from the sideline.
The end result isn’t what the farmer expects, though. Rather than becoming closer to flourishing, the white daisy appears to have slightly wilted. It’s a pure lonely white against a backing of brown loam.
“That’s weird,” Pepper says, then quickly changes her tone after a sidelong glance. “But no worries! If you keep at it, the flowers will eventually grow. After all, the best fertilizer is love.”
The decay is nothing new to Shalom but, this time, her disappointment proves harder to dispel.
Love, Shalom thinks.
Rows of blooming flowers, swaying and thriving, only help to support Pepper’s expertise; the wilting flower, lonely and down-trodden, only serves to drive the stake further.
Shalom had suspected as such, when her previous flowers would not take. In life, there were inevitably goals that one might strive for—urgently, in deep desperation—to no avail. She considered it a definite fact of life, of logic. A path opened to a path closed.
And so, she could not reasonably mourn her inability to cultivate life whilst she harbored the capability to destroy life. Whether she had chosen it or not, it was now her trade-off to live with.
With a slow controlled breath, Shalom steadily rises. She sweeps the dirt off the gloves, mindful to not aim at the flowers themselves.
“Thank you for the lesson,” Shalom says. She smiles thinly, notes how much of a far cry it is from Pepper’s wide grin, and infuses her words with the appropriate amount of warmth. “I can understand why they’ve grown so well then. They say that plants can feel your emotions. The love that courses from your heart, travelling down to the artery in your thumb—another meaning to the phrase ‘green thumb,’ I suppose.”
“I don’t quite get it, but you’re welcome to visit anytime, Miss Shalom!” Pepper gestures towards the flowers. “I’m sure they’ll be happy to see you.”
They look pitiful with their now-bowed petals and bent leaves.
“I’ll take that into consideration.” At that, Shalom walks away. Her strides are even as ever.
Love, Shalom thinks, and she concedes.