The weather had turned for the worse after a brief promise of spring. It was March and there was a gray that lurked in the sky, making the streets somber and sullen.
There were still people on the streets despite the weather. An old lady trudged by as she wrestled with a shopping trolley stuffed with groceries in one hand, while the other hand gripped her coat close to her body. Two men in business suits raced out of their car and into a nearby coffee shop. Students hurried back from their university lectures with their faces to the ground carrying heavy-looking bags over their shoulders.
Jim had to dress in three layers of clothing all topped off with gloves and a scarf and a silly hat he won at a fairground all just to keep the cold at bay.
His phone buzzed in his pocket and when he pulled it out he saw the text from Jules: I’ve got the pizza in the oven, can’t wait to see you xoxo.
He smiled and slid the phone back into his pocket.
They’d been together for three months and everything felt right. It had even felt perfect from the first date. It only took him a month to know that he loved her and about two more weeks to actually say it. They’d even begun talking about moving in together once his lease was up in May.
He’d packed a bag to stay there overnight: a shirt, a toothbrush, deodorant, and a book because she liked to sleep in during the morning while he had an old habit of waking before sunrise.
Something about the text gave Jim a weird impulse while he walked through the park. He had this raw swell of affection – a surge of happiness that washed over the gray streets and skies and made him feel alive.
There were hundreds of daffodils that bloomed under the trees at the far side of the park. They were fully grown and all lurched over towards the ground as if to shield away from the cold. Jim took a look around and saw nobody close and without a thought, he stepped forward and plucked the prettiest two he could see.
Maybe it would make Jules smile – a couple of daffodils and a kiss when he saw her.
On the way out of the park, he saw a bed of purple geraniums that were planted beneath an old oak tree. This time he didn’t look around. He leaned over and picked three flowers out of the ground and then put them in his backpack next to the daffodils.
Jim walked out of the park and onto the main road. Within two minutes he saw a tree that hung over the pavement that had blossomed plump flowers that dangled out in front of him. He snapped one of them off the tree and added it to his growing bouquet.
He felt alive with this new sense of purpose. He wanted to grab every single flower he saw and create the finest bundle of flowers he could imagine and then place them all into Jule’s hands.
While his mind buzzed with excitement the sleet began. Cold and hard strips of ice lashed against his body. He pulled his scarf from his neck and wrapped it around his face two times.
He raced along the pavement but he couldn’t stop himself from his task. Each time he saw a flower he reached over, often into people’s gardens, and would pick a few out and put them into his bag before he ran off down the road.
He went on like this for ten minutes with the scarf wrapped around his face and collected flower after flower until he could no longer feel the tips of his fingers.
He couldn’t pick another flower but when he looked down into his bag he saw an array of colour and it felt like his work was done.
He sprinted the rest of the way to Jules’s apartment. He had to keep his head down to the pavement and he held his scarf tight to his face and only looked up when he needed to cross a road.
When he got there he was wet and his body shivered. Jim took off his coat and tried to dry himself down with the inside of his glove but it just smeared the water against his skin.
He was a mess when he got in the elevator but it didn’t matter. He pushed the number seven to get to her place and then pulled open his bag and tried to assemble the flowers in the best way he could.
Jim knocked on Jules’s door while he held the flowers against his chest. When Jules opened the door her eyes lit up. Jim placed the flowers into her hands and kissed her on the cheek and began to put his arms around her. She froze for just a moment with her eyes still locked onto the flowers before she slipped away from his grasp.
He knew he was wet. Nobody wanted a wet hug. So he pulled off his damp sweater as she sat down on the bed clutching the flowers in both hands. It was then that he noticed she had tears in her eyes. When she looked back up to him she said, ‘I just don’t know what to say.’
There was a moment of doubt in him as if he’d somehow done something wrong, while a few more tears spilled down her cheeks. Jules then stood up with flowers in her hands and kissed him properly and then held his wet body against hers.
