The prompt for this was to use the names of Oscar winning movies. I chose The Shape of Water
In late February Marcella found a meager crop of unevenly spaced violets sprouting in the back lawn, no doubt a remnant of an older gardener’s vision. Most were the traditional deep purple, flowers intent on holding onto the darkness of winter, but here and there she found a white violet, their centers shaded with pale blue. These blossoms, she decided, would be her talisman, for they signaled a clear attempt to recapture optimism and even a bit of innocence.
Marcella was glad to be away from the front, but she often felt uneasy. Daily she would remind herself of the words of her old division commander: We will take the shape of water. We will offer no resistance but we will flow everywhere gravity takes us. We are forceful. We cannot be stopped.
And so it was. They had beaten back the enemy troops amassed along the eastern Sierras. The Council of Grandmothers had praised them and thanked them and told them over and over: Our nation is safe now.
But Marcella couldn’t let it go. Maybe it was all in her head. Admittedly she had her bouts with PTSD, though she was sure her case was milder than that of her many sisters. Still she could not shake the notion that the new enemy had taken the shape of air. They were everywhere, pushing against her hair and skin. We do not see them, we do not feel them—not until they move.
Oh, how they fool us, for we think they are benign, even benevolent, but they are neither. Sometimes at night she could hear the wind in the trees and she worried.
She stepped slowly across the lawn, careful amid the violets. She reached for an orange from the tree, and murmured a soft prayer to the Heart of the Universe: I am here. I am now. I am here. I am now. I am here.
Photo by Brice Cooper on Unsplash
