Vivify

Tiffany ended the call only seconds after her mother greeted her from the other end, shutting her phone off to foil any immediate call backs. She told herself that she turned the phone off to conserve her battery, rather than face the fact that she still avoided confrontation like the plague. She didn’t like to explore the darker sides of people, but she never thought that made her unique in any way. In fact, she couldn’t name one person who would prefer the darker side of people.

As she rose to her feet, she looked back across the street to see that the two men were done moving the antique book case from the truck and into the house. Strolling towards his front porch, she climbed the steps and opened the front door, letting herself into his home with no shame attached. She entered the living room that was off to the right with a joyous grin on her face.

The confused duo of Sean and Pat stared on as she made her way through the living room, critiquing the virtually non-existent décor. The walls were painted a standard shade of white and held nothing but a framed poster from the movie Mystic Pizza. It didn’t appear to hold any monetary value, which prompted her to spark a conversation.

“I love this movie! I try to watch It once a year, usually right around Thanksgiving, but I didn’t get too last year because I was living off of the land. I kind of miss that, you know? That connection with nature? It’s an incredible feeling.” She stepped over to Pat, who was sitting on the couch in front of the television, eating a sandwich with chips and watching sports highlights. Tiffany reached down and grabbed a handful of chips off of his plate, holding them in her palm as she paced the room.

“You don’t look like the kind of guy that would like Mystic Pizza enough to have a poster in your living room. Do you like Abba too?” A slight giggle followed her sarcastic remark.

“That thing belonged to my sister. She left it behind when she went off to college a few years back. I keep it around because it’s the first movie I saw with her at the theater. I still have my ticket stub.”

“That’s wonderful! Are you guys still close?”

“Not really,” he replied, getting visibly agitated at her invasive dialogue.

“You’re starting to show some of that bear in you now,” she observed from their previous conversation. It got a laugh out of him, making it a success in her eyes. “You know, I could decorate this whole room for you. I would love to do it. I could add a touch of life to this place.”

Her choice of words struck a chord in his chest, leading him to believe that maybe she wasn’t just some gypsy woman who he’d met by pure coincidence. He kept replaying the words in his mind, ‘touch of life,’ over and over again until he scrambled any intended meaning far beyond interpretation.

“My dad died,” she said before turning her back to him and leaving the home. She walked down the steps and towards a colorful garden in front of his next door neighbor’s house. Kneeling down on one knee, she began to pluck rose petals one by one and laid them down on the grass next to her. She tried to pick the deepest and darkest roses that were readily available. After doing so and compiling petals, she walked them back to Sean’s house.

As she stepped through the living room and into the kitchen, she reached for a mason jar that rested on the side of the sink. Sean entered the room as she filled the jar with cold water, asking what she was doing.

“Bringing life to your home, silly goose. Do you have a sponge? I need a sponge.”

As he dug through a cabinet below the sink, she asked if it was possible if she could spend some time with the bookcase that intrigued her so. He placed the sponge on the sink next to where she placed the mason jar, which now held the petals soaking in water.

“Come on, follow me,” he told her, leading the way to the bookcase. They entered an empty bedroom that had nothing but a window and a chair in the corner aside from the wooden book rack. She was oddly intimidated by the piece of furniture and she wasn’t sure why. Being afraid of an inanimate object seemed goofy to her, but there was something about it that felt off.

“This bookcase is amazing,” she said to Sean, looking at him look at her. “Can you imagine how many words this thing has held? Probably more than we could ever pronounce.” Her small joke made her laugh to herself as she began to rub it down, checking for cracks in the wood. As she reached the back of the enclosure, she felt something hollow in the middle. Her curiosity caused her to knock on it softly, confirming her suspicions.

“Sean, there’s something not right about this book case. We need to open it and see what’s inside.”

“Look, Tiffany, you’re… well, you’re acting crazy. First you come in here acting like you own the place, eating my friends chips..”

She put her arms to her side and cocked her head to the side, “so I can’t eat your friends chips?”

“No, you can’t eat my friends chips. That’s against the rules.”

“Whose rules?”

He looked at her like a parent who was getting a little too accustomed her the ‘why stage.’

“You know what, ok, nevermind. Eat all the chips from all my friends, but you’re not getting me to bust open that bookcase.”

“Yes I will. You just don’t know it yet,” she said as she turned her back on him once again. As she walked back into the kitchen, she grabbed the mason jar and removed the petals one by one, tossing them in the trash can beside her. He followed her back into the kitchen and looked on as she held the jar, which now held a dark blood red solution that was sucked from the rose petals.

She dabbed the sponge inside the jar and pressed it up against the wall with extreme care, blotting the walls. She thought that this color was perfect in its simple elegance, turning to a more easy shade of pastel red once it touched the paint. She felt that we as people were overexposed to artificial colors, the popping vibrance of made by man. This was a natural color, it came from the earth and she could think of no better way to bring life to something so dead.