I was closing up the store one winter night when I heard the crashing sound. I always hear things while I’m at work so I just ignored it and kept on sweeping all the remains from today’s work. Then I heard it again. My mind is just playing games with me, I thought. Then I heard it a third time. Okay fine, I’ll go check the storage room. As I walking back to the room I heard this scrambling sound, like the sound when you dropped something and you have to hurry and pick everything up before your mom sees you. I peaked my head into the storage room, everything seems fine. I went and turned off the lights and began my closing ritual; clock out for the day, make sure all the monitors off, double check to see no candles are burning, and last but not least, make sure the front cooler doors are shut. I’ve worked here so long I’m almost immune to the smell of fresh cut flowers and the plants. People always walk in and say how good it smells, I use to remember what that was like. The Christmas decorations look so magical and peaceful at night, especially the big snowflakes in the front window with all the Christmas trees around them. I wished deep down that this is how it always felt. The next morning I woke up to a screaming alarm clock, beeping nonstop in my ear. Slamming my hand on the clock to search for the snooze button, I finally found it and it stopped. I looked at the clock; the time read 6:10. Ugh, I guess I should get up soon so I can get ready. Today I have to go to work, which automatically means that today is not going to be a good day. I can already foresee how today is going to play out. In about twenty minutes I am going to drag myself out of bed and get ready for school. I am then going to freeze while going outside to scrap my car as my hands turn a bright red form the cold. After that I am going to drive to school as my front window will fog up in which I will have to get out of my car halfway to school and continue to scrap it off my windshield. Then I will arrive to school, sometimes see my boyfriend waiting for me and I will then be 2-3 minutes late and I will get tardy in which I will have to make up at Saturday School. How cute is he, I thought dreamily to myself. I got out of the car and gave him the hugest bear hug of all time (yes, I’m a huggy person.) “Hey Brady!” I said to him with a huge smile on my face. “Hiya darlin’” Brady replied with his goofy voice. “How is your morning going? Did you sleep good?” These were the questions we usually asked each other every morning. “Pretty good except I woke up with my dad yelling at me to get up, other than that not to bad.” He said with a cheery tone in his voice. “How about yourself?” “Same old, same old. Woke up, froze my butt off, then came here and saw you.” I said with a huge grin on my face. “You’re a dork, but you’re my dork.” He laughed at me. “We better head off to class; I can’t afford to get anymore Saturday School.” He walked me to class after that and we said goodbye. We met up after school and talked. “How was school? Anything interesting happen?” I asked. “You sound like my mom, but it went good.” He laughed at me. I knew he was joking, that’s how our relationship always goes. We joke about things, but at the end of the day we know that each other was joking. “It’s a good thing I am not your mom knowing all the things you’ve gotten into.” He then gave me a look of look-who’s-talking. “You know I’m just pullin’ your leg.” I said as I gave him a hug. “I better go. My sisters are going kill me if I’m late again.” “Alrighty, I better let you go then. I know how your sisters are.” He then gave me a hug and we both said goodbye.
I slowly pulled out of the parking lot listening to Adam Lambert full blast. Even if he is gay, he’s still hot, I thought to myself. I of course was speeding trying to get to work. Checking every now and again around the corner to make sure there were no pigs (that what my dad called cops while growing up and it rubbed off on me.) I luckily pulled into my parking stall in the back of the shop with two minutes to three. I walked into flower shop acting like I had everything under control. I attempted to clock in, got my password wrong the first two times, then was successful the third time. Third time’s the charm. “Beth, tonight make sure you mop the floor, water the plants, cut the gerbers, and fill the cooler. It better be done by tomorrow morning or you’ll be hearing from us.” They said with a stern voice. Cinderellie Cinderellie, I thought of the mice on Cinderella. They were always so cute. Well enough thinking about mice that could comfort me. I need to get to work before my sister flip a lid. I went behind the wall where the wall was hiding everything so no customers could see our disastrous mess. Dang, we got in some really pretty hydrangea today. Looks like I know what I’m going to use in the bulk of my arrangements, I thought intently to myself. I might as well just bring the whole bucket out. I got out one of my favorite vases and started to design.
When I was almost finished (and proud of my work, thank you very much), my sister Heidi came up to me. “Do you realize how much that costs for that size? That’s much too small for a price that large. No one will want to buy it for that price.” She rudely said to my face. As my confidence was crushed I said, “I’m sorry I’ll just rearrange it.” What a brat, she couldn’t say oh nice work Beth, but let me help you out a little or anything more nice to me at all? They are so rude. All they do is pick on others, I complained to myself. I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. Even though no customers are in the store and my dad doesn’t really mind I text while at work every once in a while, my sisters are. They would obviously yell and want to pull my hair out. Work went by surprisingly fast. I once again got to my closing rituals for closing up the shop. As usual, I put the extra flowers in some random bucket hoping they’ll soon get used and I put the additional greens in their on little pile on top of another bucket of flowers. I guess I could sweep inside the cooler, I thought to myself. I went to the delivery closet and searched through the mess until I found the broom and dust pan and began to sweep up the mess. As I was sweeping, I heard that noise again. I quickly stopped what I was doing and waited to see if I could hear it again. I waited a good two minutes and then continued to sweep. My mind is just playing games with me again, I thought to myself. Grabbing the dust pan, I started to scoop up handful by handful and dumping it into the trash can. In the middle of a putting a handful in the garbage can, I heard another noise similar to the two before but this one was louder, more distinct. It happened again. Okay, that’s it, I’m going to find out what that noise is once and for all, I told myself. As the noise continued to happen, I tried to listen to where it was coming from. It sounded pretty close, I could feel myself getting closer and closer to it. It sounded like it was coming from the back room where the extra boxes of flowers are kept so that they can be cut and put into buckets for tomorrow. I followed the sound, I was trapped by the curiosity of what it could possible be. I peeked into the darkened room and guided my hand along the wall trying to find the light switch. Like a fork in the road, my hand found it. I looked up and down and all around. I caught a glimpse of something in the corner of my eye. I hurried an looked over in that direction. Nothing. Then I saw something in the other direction. I looked over that direction now. That’s weird, why is their just one carnation laying on the ground, I thought curiously to myself. I picked it up and started to put it in box with the rest of flowers. It just went limp like a noodle. Dude, this is weird, this has never, and I mean never, happened before. It’s like it was possessed.
All of the sudden it went stiff again like it is suppose too. “Why hello there,” a voice called out to me. Where in the freak is that coming from and who is it, scared and nervous I looked around. “Down here darlin’” I looked down. I thought I was dreaming. I must have lost my mind. The flower oddly took shape. Somehow, top of the flower transformed and looked like a face, using the pedals to form the features. The lips started to turn up into a gentle smile, “You must be a little shocked right now. I know that if I were you, I would be shocked too, but let me introduce myself, my name is Carnie. I’m the motherly figure of the group. “
My jaw dropped open. I was dumbstruck. I rubbed my eyes furiously thinking my mind was playing a funny game on me. Real funny let me tell you, I thought. I threw the carnation down and ran out. I stopped at by dad’s work desk, trying to calm myself down. All of the sudden I hear a light tapping sound behind me. I slowly take a deep breath and turn around. I gasp in shock as the carnation followed me to my dad’s work desk. It just stood there smiling at me.
“Are you okay? You look a little pale,” the carnation that is supposedly called Carnie said to me.
I suddenly jerked up out of my bed. Breathing so hard as I looked around my room. Oh my gosh I’m going crazy, why in the world did I have a dream about talking flowers. I sat in bed thinking about what just happened. I dreamt all of that. The least thing I actually remember happening was falling asleep after I got home from work yesterday. That means that today is still Tuesday morning. What time is it anyway? I looked over at my clock. 6:02 am. I laid back down thankful that was all a crazy dream. I soon let sleep take me over.