Of Sunflowers and Broken Promises

Time: Not too long ago.

Place: An American city.

That day in New York the sun was nowhere to be seen. The sky was a dreary, hazy grey, reflecting the colors of the street and the mood of the city as a whole. For while people still hurried to and fro inconspicuously, seemingly going about their daily business as usual, there was a certain tension and melancholy in their demeanor that would not have been visible at first glance. It was this that permeated the city like a dense fog, and no one knew why.

But somewhere in the center of the city, in the midst of the hustle and bustle, sitting on a lone bench and twirling a single sunflower between his fingers, was a young glasses-bearing man who might just have some answer to all this.

Alfred Jones observed the golden bloom, so out of place in all this dreariness, trapped within his hand. He still remembered the little games he used to play with flowers like these (but not this one, never), picking the petals off one by one while the little chant played along in his mind: She loves me, she loves me not. She loves me, she loves me not.

She loves me…

Oh, how it had seemed so then. Я тебя люблю, she'd said. I love you. That was when he'd promised to be there for her always, and she too. When it was as if their hearts had become one, their countries united, when he reached for her hand and intertwined her slender fingers with his. Moscow had been his, Washington, D.C. had been hers. In a spiritual sense they'd belonged to each other.

How much time had passed, how many changes had been wrought, since those bright, sunlit days. All had been well then… But now…

Alfred stopped twirling the flower to observe it with a changed countenance. So bright, those golden yellow petals, the essence of the sun captured within. But in the center, seeds of darkness.

He put one hand to his heart, as though, momentarily, he might be able to feel the gaping hole within. This was the place she'd taken, the place she'd left. The place no one would ever be able to fill again, except for her.

But there was no more returning to the past.

Alfred held the sunflower up in the fading light, slowly counting the petals in his head.

She loves me, she loves me not.

He remembered bringing her here to America, to show her a field of sunflowers just like this one. How she'd smiled. He'd never seen her smile like that, before or after.

She loves me, she loves me not.

Then the war, terrible war, descending on them all, or they descending into it. The abyss that spread and threatened to swallow the entire world in its gaping maw.

She loves me, she loves me not.

She'd blamed him for not coming to her aid. The look in her eyes had been devastating, heartbreaking. That was when the transition from past to present had begun. He'd wanted to return, but with each passing minute, each second, time was slipping past. Yet he still tried to convince himself.

She loves me…

He'd wanted to believe that there was still some way they could be together. He still did. But how likely was it, when they were now fighting hopelessly against each other, without an end?

… She loves me not.

Alfred looked at the sunflower one final time, the last reminder of those days past. Her name hovered on his lips momentarily, his mouth opened, but there was nothing there save silence. Complete, utter silence.

He let the sunflower fall.