Jacarandas

~ 1090 words
Urban Fantasy


Huge jacarandas were swaying aloft. Nothing to worry about at this time of year in Macau. One flower fluttered to the pavement where Ping picked it up. He smiled until it bled purple and left a mark on his palm. That's something to note, he thought. He went to the nearest washroom to rid his hands of the stains and glanced in the mirror. The pale image wavering back, glowed an odd shade of indigo, turning a deeper purple, before he blacked out.

...

Beograd was ruins, always ruins. Ping wandered the bustling street of the river city in the rain. The ghosts of Austrians, Hungarians, and Ottomans didn't scare him and the bombs dropped during the last war with the West had been defused. He stepped carefully... just in case.


No, it wasn't war that had brought him here. He looked at the pale marks on his hand. They looked like no more than bruises but he knew better. And so did the gargoyles and stone statues that sneered at him along the way. He ignored the twitter of the rats that lingered in the nooks and crannies as he headed up Balkanskaya street. He had told the local cats about them; but, a gang of rats... The cats would need reminding that they had a job, just like everyone else in this working city.


He headed towards the Moscow Hotel. He entered the elaborate foyer and paid for the night.


His room looked out over the red roofs of the produce market. He could see the river and the riverboats plying the Sava and the Danube. He glanced at his wrist and palm. No sign of change. They had glowed once before on his way here, but just a glimmer. No, the problem didn't lie in the direction of the markets or the rivers.


Beograd... what to say... it was a nitty, gritty city that didn't hide its shit. No pretentious wannabes, even among the glitterati strolling the high rent district of Knez Mihailova Street. Life was too precious, too fragile, too...


A bell rang through his thoughts. Real, imagined, historical? Past and present seemed to reside within Ping. Sometimes he even pondered whether he was linked to the future.


Silly thoughts.


His palm was fine when he washed his hands, his wrist easily opened the door. He went out into the hallway.


Pain. Searing pain. The mother of all pain. He heard tinkling laughter.


No one faced him but he recognized an old friend. Death always showed up when he was in trouble. She'd promised him that he could join her... when he was ready.


Her presence calmed him. He smiled at the thought.


Thoughts. Time to think. Jacarandas didn't grow in Serbia. Too blustery, a tad too frosty. He headed towards the botanical gardens.


And stopped at the zoo along the way. He had learned to listen to the local gossip. The albino wallaby was dreaming pleasant thoughts; a bear stared through him bemused; but the white lions...


They were pacing back and forth as if they were troubled. Then Ping spotted their problem. One child was throwing pieces of his pljeskavica at them and his father was having a tantrum. A problem for them and the hungry lions, he admitted, but not for him.


Death roared with the lions. He shouted back.


"Not today"


The father and daughter turned to stare at him, mouths wide open, no sound coming forth. Speaking out loud again? He heard the taunt in his mind. Not a pleasant taunt either. Death wasn't the only one present.


Ping trotted towards the university's green-house. The answer would be there. If he only knew the question...


And then he saw the shattered glass, the mewing kitten, the purple flowers fluttering in a tree. He swayed and almost fell.


They were beckoning him. Soft whispers rippled on the breeze, becoming urgent. Save us!


He tried the door. Locked. And then the kitten mewed and ran to hide. Ping followed. Nothing happened just by chance. Maybe for others; but reality tended to bend around him when he was out and about.


He found an opening, crawled through it, stood up. And there stood his nemesis with his ax, the kitten on one side, Death on the other.


"I knew you'd come."


The man was built like an ox and tossed an ax from one hand to the other. The jacaranda quivered in response.


Ping closed his eyes, breathed in and out then stooped down to grab some dirt. The worms in the humus told him that the soil was fertile and willing to harbor life, that they were always watered, that they were content. He looked around at the other plants. They snoozed unaware of any danger.


Ping sighed and spoke softly with the breeze who assured him that it had had no ill intentions. Someone had left two doors open during its last tantrum and... well, glass can be fragile and some trees... a tad too touchy.


The jacaranda pleaded, every leaf and branchlet fluttering as if they would all faint.


Ping warned his nemesis, "Trim only what you must. Leave the rest." Ax-Man grunted but did as he was told. He had bigger jobs waiting and he had no time to spare for a minor disagreement. Plus, there would come a day. He grinned.


Death sang softly and closed her eyes holding out her hands in supplication to receive the spare offering of broken branches, weeping blooms and fluttering leaves.


Ping picked up a blossom, and held it in his hand. It gave its blessing and the stains vanished as the kitten purred in his lap.

...

The jacarandas were finished blooming by the time Ping got back to Macau. Death had waved good-bye to him as he boarded his flight. She had urgent business elsewhere. The disgruntled Ax-Man had nodded with that look of next time. The lions were sleeping as he bid adieu. He took a night flight through Istanbul.


He'd once fled Nature to a landscape of concrete and casinos to avoid the incessant begging of the voices surrounding him. He told the flies to hush... or else... He was home.


Ping needed to sleep. He had become a Master Gardener to tend to flowers, to feel rich loam flow between his fingers, to caress each branch and assuage the pain of every root he had to cut. But, sometimes, the Effulgence of Life overwhelmed him. Death kindly offered him a well-deserved rest. But... Ping always weakly smiled and answered, "Not yet".


© Copyright 2023 Kåre Enga [180.86] (7.august.2023)