Lilacs
I pull us over to the side of the road. There are no cars on the highway. I grab a small blue candle from the glovebox. I get out of my Previa, the sun already heavy on my back. I sit in the shade of my car and light the blue candle. A breeze comes in the heat and blows the candle out. I get up, scan the highway. I see it just up the road from us, only a couple of yards. I get Rose out of the car, walking to the bush.
We sit beside the lilac bush. The road is quiet. The bush is in full bloom. I smell it, taking in a long breath. I follow, the smell like soft feather down. Ten years since we last smelt this lilac bush.
Pasties
Rose and I met at a Cornish Pasty shop in Portland. She was in front of me in line, her gold hair curly like phone cords. Almost like a blond Elaine from Seinfeld.
How the fuck do you not have steak and potato pasties? she said, beginning to lean on the counter. Her and the cashier were talking. I hadn’t eaten anything at all that day and it was four.
I was hungry. I just wanted a pasty. So I walked up to the two of them.
Excuse me, I said. I couldn’t say anything as I looked at her, her eyes polished and centered with deep brown. She was smiling. I wanted to give her something. I felt happy to see her, though I had never seen her before.
Yes? she asked, You want a Pasty?
I can’t remember what I said after that, but we started to see each other on most days.
Mother of Rose
We had been together for five months. It was the end of spring. We stood in a small graveyard, wearing all black. Her mother was a classic woman. She demanded a lot from those around her, but always gave a lot back.
Rose held onto my arm as her mother was slowly put into the ground. Rose sank onto the grass. She tried to stand up. She kept holding my hand. Her mother was only fifty-two.
Arboretum
Two days later we went to the Arboretum.
Why do we have to go to an arboretum to see trees? she said rhetorically
Stumptown, I said.
We were looking at a small Joshua Tree.
Lets go camping. See the real thing, Rose said. That was a decade ago.
Candlestick
I bought some candlesticks for the road trip. They were for prayers. I thought it would be nice to light some for her mother. They were blue candles. I didn’t think I would use them like that. Rose looked tired as we sat with some wine after dinner in my house. Looked sad. Clearly she was sad. But she didn’t want to talk. I went outside. I took one of the blue candles, lit a cigarette.
I lit the candle for her and her mother and let it burn.
Concrete
She seemed better the next morning.
She kissed me and said, I feel like a fucking sun. Ya bish is the sun.
We headed out, exiting my driveway onto the asphalt going south.
We drove until we hit the northern portion of the Inyo National Forest. Drove off the highway onto a dirt road, slept outside in the cold air, our sleeping bags zipped together and everything a romantic movie around us. The stars red from the fires in Colorado.
Abruptly, Rose got up, went over to the sandstone rocks beside our car and smoked a cigarette. I watched her ember in the dark. Then her face lit up. She had service out here. I wasn’t sure who she was texting. Maybe her father. Or just writing some notes.
She finished her cigarette and came back.
You good? I asked.
She mumble a yes.
I just don’t want to talk, she replied.
I got up and took a blue candle. I went up to the rocks where Rose had just been and lit the candle.
When I got back to the sleeping bag Rose was asleep.
The next morning she was already up and drinking coffee at six, sitting on the hood of the car, wearing her black hoodie, hood up, her hair cascading out of the sweater.
Hey, I said, walking to her.
She said nothing and kissed me, attempting a smile.
We can go back if you want, I said.
She handed me the coffee.
She looked at me and smiled.
You’re sweet. No. Let’s do it, she responded, No point in going when were this close.
We drank some more coffee and headed south at nine, driving for three hours until we got to an empty stretch of straight road. We pulled to the side of the road and got out. There were some tall bushes beside the road.
A breeze came. It smelled like lilac.
Crete
Leon! Rose yelled to me, The mountains remind me of going to Crete when I was little!
She took a photo.
We hiked through gorges once, she said, to this stream where we had a picnic beside the water. My dad went downstream fishing. My mom sat on the blanket and began reading whatever law paper she had for whatever case she was working on. I didn’t care about that stuff. I was four. I decided to run upstream from our picnic spot. My parents didn’t notice I left. I saw this strange deer with huge antlers. It saw me as it drank from the stream. It bolted up the canyon wall. I thought it was so pretty, it’s patterns so strange and beautiful on its fur. I had to follow it. But once I got to the top, it was nowhere to be seen. Instead, I saw the ocean miles away and patches of fluffy clouds. I started to scream, jump and clap. It was so beautiful. Like looking at a place made of opal, but vast like the sky. I climbed down and told my parents about it and we all went back up to look at the view.
But that’s how the mountains remind me of Crete. There is opal all over this valley and it’s vast like the sky and ocean in Crete. I wonder if we’ll see our own Ibex soon.
Feather Down
The smell of the lilacs came back in another breeze.
Do you smell that? I asked Rose.
Yeah, she said, it’s not from the car?
I shook my head.
We looked around us. everything looked dead. There was one small bush beside the road.
about thirty yards. It looked like brown coral of some sort. I didn’t think that lilac looked like that. It doesn’t. But as we walked closer we saw that it was a flowering lilac in the desert. The purple flowers were hidden by shadows and the blue sky.
This must be our Ibex, Rose said. She began to jump and laugh, theatrically breathing the perfumed air.
We stuck our faces in it, smelling it a bit longer. We took a few flowers and put them on the dash of the car.
We then drove off to Joshua tree.
Phantom
We smell the lilac again. I wonder if it is always in blossom.
“I wonder if it always is in blossom,” I say to Rose.
There is no response. I look over to where I thought saw Rose. She’s not there. I’m looking at the bush instead. I look at my hands. I’m holding a golden jar, shiny and new. Only a week old.
There she is.
I must’ve been daydreaming. I guess they call it a mirage if you’re in the desert.
Anathema
I go back to my car. The road is silent.
We broke up a couple months after that trip. We always stayed close though. I was the one broken up with. It was for the better. Still thought about her everyday though. I always picture her sitting beside this bush of strange lilac.
Ordinary
I take the cigarettes I have. I light one and smoke it, looking at the bush. Smoking. It’s hot. I sit in the shade of my car. I cry cry cry.
Apple
I look at the Gold jar that sits beside me and continue to cry. I hate seeing urns. Like apples rolling down a city street.
Giving
I take the jar and walk over to the lilac. I kneel, pouring her into the bush. This strange tree, like her curls, shooting out in strange, perfectly chaotic directions. And so soft. And always so alive.
Previa
I walk over to my Previa. I open the sliding door. I take out another cigarette, open a bottle of cold water from my cooler. I close the door. I can’t decide if I’m going to Joshua tree. I’ll head south for now though.
∞
Cole Hersey has worked as a staff writer with the Oregon Voice and the Bennington Free Press. He attended Bennington College as an undergraduate. He works as an editor with the West Marin Review out of Point Reyes Station and has been published in SILO, the Marin Arts & Culture Magazine, and the Santa Cruz Almanac.
