Free to Read: "A Place Where Flowers Bloom"
Well, I found out this morning that Corner Bar Magazine no longer exists. It’s sad to see a publication fold, especially one that brought “A Place Where Flowers Bloom” to an audience. That said, I’m sharing the story on my blog so readers can continue to enjoy it for free.
The version below has a few more tweaks/polishes than the one Corner Bar Magazine published last December. I gave the story a small overhaul this spring, as I submitted it as part of my Clarion West application portfolio.
That said . . . enjoy!
A Place Where Flowers Bloom
By Thomas Broderick
Despite what some of his countrymen thought of farmers’ intelligence, Janusz Nowak was a well-informed man. He read the newspaper in the morning and watched the news at night. When his son and daughter were growing up, he drove them into Kraków once a month to attend a concert recital or visit a museum. He wanted them cultured, and so they became. As for him, he was content plowing his fields among the pine trees, living in the same little white house countless generations of Nowaks had called home. Continued learning was a valuable hobby, not life’s true ambition.
Janusz’s self-education was the only reason he did not startle when, on a cool late October day, a man appeared out of the ether at his doorstep. He wore a fine wool suit and spoke Polish with a slight accent. Probably English or American, Janusz figured while inviting him inside.
“Tea or coffee?”
The visitor wiped his feet on the doormat. “Tea will be fine.”
Tea and snacks ready, they sat across from one other at the cramped kitchen table. “My wife’s better at entertaining guests, but she’s in Warsaw this week visiting our children at university.”
The man nodded and took his first sip. “It’s very good.”
Janusz fiddled with his cup. “I assume you’re not.” He paused to clear his throat. “From here.”
“If by here you mean Earth, you’d be one-hundred-percent incorrect. I’m Louis Donnelley. Born and raised in Chicago. The name’s Irish, but I’m half Polish from my mother’s side. To get to your point, no, I’m not from this dimension.”
The farmer nodded. Stories of interdimensional travel had been in the news and papers for over a year. So far, it was just diplomats and scientists making brief visits to other realities, trying to foster good relations, that sort of thing.
“I know it must seem strange,” Louis continued. “You’ve probably never heard of someone like me just showing up at a random house.”
“That’s true. I figured you’d be at the presidential palace. You sure you got your coordinates right?”
Louis chuckled. “Absolutely. You see, Mr. Nowak, it’s taken a while for political relationships to form among the dimensions. Lots of negotiations and handshakes. Oh, and let’s not forget the copious paperwork!” He paused to take another sip of tea. “However, now that the ink’s dry, we can move forward, start cultural exchanges, even a little tourism.”
“Tourism?”
“If there’s money to be made, people will do it. Also, the opportunities for learning and personal enlightenment…the sky’s the limit!”
Janusz leaned back in his chair. Learning and personal enlightenment, that did sound good. Yet he couldn’t help but chuckle. “Again, I don’t think you have the right address.” He turned his head to look out the window above the sink. “Out there is nothing but sixteen hectares of rye and oats.”
Louis finished his tea, the cup making a slight clink as he set it on the saucer. His eyes were kind but hid volumes. “That’s exactly why I’m here. Unfortunately, I can’t say much more right now. When your wife is back, I’d like to meet with you both to discuss what would be involved. Please tell her that people from innumerable dimensions are interested in visiting your farm. And, of course, you’d be compensated handsomely.”
Not long after, Louis left only to vanish the moment he stepped outside Janusz’s front door. The farmer spent the rest of the long fall afternoon walking through his fallow fields. The land was silent minus a fat crow’s incessant cawing. He wished it would stop. Maybe then he’d understand what the interdimensional traveler had been talking about. But his mind came up blank. Sighing, he decided to leave the matter until his wife’s return.
#
Janusz’s wife Joanna didn’t believe a word of her husband’s story until Louis appeared the following week. He carried a leather suitcase containing a phonebook-thick stack of legal documents.
“You see,” Louis explained, touching a ballpoint pen to an aerial map of the Nowaks’ property. “There would be only a small reception area on the east side of your land for parking and a bathroom. A guide would then lead visitors on a thirty-minute walking tour.” He traced a rectangular path.
“I don’t know how I feel about people popping into existence on my land,” Joanna said. “It’d give me a heart attack, or I’d accidentally run someone over with the car.”
“That won’t be a problem.” Louis flipped through the pages to a specific paragraph. “As you can see, all guests will arrive and depart your dimension in either Kraków or Warsaw.”
“Hmmm.” Joanna crossed her arms and eyed her husband without turning her head. “What do you think?”
“It doesn’t seem like a big deal. And the money wouldn’t hurt.” He looked at Louis. “And the only rule is that we can’t talk to them?”
“Nothing but a friendly wave if you happen to pass by a group or person. Besides that, no formal contact. We want to preserve your privacy, among other things.”
The middle-aged couple signed Louis’s paperwork, at which time he presented them with a crisp check for 15,000 złotys.
“The first of many.”
“So strange,” Joanna told her husband after Louis left. “I just don’t get it.”
Janusz shrugged. “Racked my brain for days after he first showed up. I figure that it’s not worth worrying about.”
His wife nodded before walking into the other room where the telephone was. Their children would want to hear about the good fortune that had befallen their family.
#
Life didn’t change much for Janusz over the next few months. His children visited over the holidays and told stories of interdimensional visitors trickling into Warsaw.
“They keep to themselves, just like the tour groups from foreign countries,” his son Jakub reported at the end of Christmas Eve dinner. “The guides use the same little flags, too, so no one gets lost.”
The thought of it made Janusz grin. “People are the same all over, I guess. Any places in particular they like to go?”
Jakub thought for a moment. “The Great Synagogue, the Saxon Palace, Old Town. You know, the usual tourist traps. It’s the same with Kraków. Not so much the main square, but the museums are getting a lot more visitors. I’ve heard that thousands have wept in front of Raphael’s self-portrait.”
“That one’s beautiful,” Joanna added, cupping her cheek. “You’d think the other realities, timelines, universes, whatever people want to call them don’t have great artists. I’m just glad we took you there before all this started up.”
“We do appreciate it, mom,” their daughter Eliza said. “But tell us about here! Have you seen any of them, dad?”
“Not really. There’s a rest stop where three buses can park. I’ve sometimes seen the groups walking around when I’m on my tractor. I give them a smile or a nod. That’s it.”
“Strange.” Jakub shook his head back and forth. “You notice anything about them? Any clue as to why they’re here.”
Janusz looked up at the wall clock. It was almost time to go to Mass. “They…a lot of them look shocked, as if this place was the strangest thing in creation.”
#
The extra income afforded Janusz more comfort and pleasure in his life, an opportunity he wasn’t about to miss. His little white house became somewhat less little with the addition of two rooms. Outings to Kraków with Joanna every other month became overnight trips to Zakopane’s mountain villas or Gdańsk’s beach resorts.
Despite these new adventures, Kraków remained close to the couple’s hearts. On a bright June day, they found themselves in the town square having lunch under one of the hundreds of white and red umbrellas that circled the medieval Cloth Hall like a festive wreath.
“I didn’t think semi-retirement would be this pleasant,” Joanna commented before finishing her pilsner beer.
“And all we have to do is see a bunch of bewildered faces every day,” Janusz added. “Not too bad, I’d say.”
Their food arrived, and, for a while, the couple concentrated on their golabki and pork hock. Janusz occasionally looked up from his meal to watch the tourists walking through the square. A large crowd speaking a language he didn’t recognize had gathered around the flower sellers that set up shop on fine days like this. They seemed so, so happy.
“Joanna.” Janusz put down his fork. “What do you think of changing things up at the farm?”
#
The following spring, Janusz planted a one-meter-wide row of flowers along both sides of the walking path visitors took through his farm. Two hundred red corn poppies here, six hundred violet Siberian irises there. The globe flowers looked nice in certain spots, even though the greenery overpowered their delicate yellow petals.
The farmer worked during the evenings when he knew no one would disturb him. During the day, he peered from his kitchen window as groups walked nearby.
“Just what are you looking for?” Joanna asked one afternoon after her husband had spent three straight hours staring through his binoculars.
“There. The young couple on the right.”
Joanna took the binoculars. After two years of sorry-looking faces, this was the first time she had seen people smiling.
“Well, that is a change. Keep it up, Mr. gardener.”
Janusz did just that. Oh, his ancestors would never have imagined their livelihood gone to flowers, he mused, throwing the tiny seeds like a schoolboy flinging white sand at Dębki Beach.
The flowers that fall grew in clumps separated by the grasses and weeds that covered Silesia like a fine green carpet. Janusz put up a wooden sign at the visitors’ entrance. Please take a flower (or two) to remember your trip!Jakub helped him translate the message into multiple languages.
#
By the time Janusz was in his late seventies, all of his once sprawling farm had returned to nature, the million-and-a-half flowers that dotted the land the great-great-great-great grandchildren of those he had planted. Even though the place had changed, the groups continued to come. And just as he had hoped, many people left with a flower in hand.
It was during this time that Janusz’s granddaughter Hanna spent every other weekend with him and Joanne. No longer farmers, they figured spoiling her was a good use of their golden years. Hanna loved riding on her grandfather’s tractor. Seeing her happy face was the only reason the farmer-turned-florist kept it running.
It was a fine fall day, much like the one when Louis appeared on Janusz’s doorstep. The season’s first frost was only a week away, meaning this was likely the last chance he and Hanna had to soak in the reds, blues, and yellows.
“Pretty, isn’t it, honey?” Janusz turned the tractor’s engine off. All around them, flowers and tall grass fluttered in the breeze.
Hanna nodded and hopped down. She put a corn poppy in her hair before offering one to her grandfather. He put it behind his left ear.
At that moment, a group of people appeared walking along the path not too far away.
“They’re back,” Hanna announced in a small voice.
“Yes, they are.” Janusz squinted to see them better. “You know, the first people who came here looked…they looked really sad. I didn’t like that. I wanted to make this a beautiful and happy place. For them, for me, for you, for everyone.”
“Why were they so sad?”
The grandfather took his granddaughter’s hand. “I don’t know. No one ever told me, and, really, I didn’t want to find out. It’s okay. Some things are just like that. In twenty years, the only thing I ever learned about them is their name for here.”
Janusz paused to look over the beauty that surrounded them. For a moment, the earth below was so steady and silent and undisturbed that not even the birds chirped to bother its eternal peace.
“They call it Birkenau.”
###