Petal upon petal fell, landing soundlessly atop the soft green threshold. The lone summer days at her aunt’s estate in the painfully quiet English countryside had left her with nothing better to do than to pass time in her aunt’s orchard. Stretching out for acres, the orchard was abundant with trees and nicely shaped bushes, but lacked the amenities such a beautiful place should have - such as fireplaces and sofas, and other living creatures, most preferrably those capable of carrying a conversation. She often spent her cool mid-mornings here pondering such the pampered but dull life of the aristocratic (and she would have spent these cool, mid-mornings attempting to carry a conversation with her aunt across the long table in the foyer, had she not been such a dull, aristocratic person herself). Keeping her gaze fixed on the grass speckled with sunlight, she retired from walking, leaning against the thin trunk of the nearest tree. It was quite the handsome redbud, and in admiring it, she forgot the damage this could do to one’s Italian silk nightgown in her slight reverie. She wiggled her toes in heavy anticipation as it’s yellowing buds continued to swirl around her in different patterns, some taking longer to land than others, some taking nose dives like the wonderful atheletes at the Vaudevillian circus shows her mother would take her to back in New York, last Fall when she was alive. Her aunt, on the other hand, despised them as rude entertainment for the lower and middle classes - perhaps yet another reason she found her aunt thoroughly displeasing and dull. Posh, affluent. Beautiful. But horribly, horribly dull - just like the rest of Bristol and England and it’s people. She couldn’t wait to board the ship back to America, surely New York was safer; her stubborn aunt could stay in her perfect little bubble of a world. The coming air raids her father had warned her about might bring her aunt to realization.

She continued to watch the prolounged descent of the yellow and pink petals until they would land on the grass and sit, motionless. Soon, her bare toes poked out from a sea of soft, peachy blessings.

Petal upon petal, but no flowers. She glanced up, and her heart fell a little. The tree was now bare, a solemn, brittle thing motionless in the breeze.

At the faint sound of sirens in the West, she quickly picked up her dress and rushed inside.