\nLotus had no idea what she was looking at. That is, it was very clear\nthat she was sitting in a giant\u2019s castle, looking at a golden harp\nwith her father\u2019s face carved into one side. She could see where\nthe gold leaf had flaked away on one of his cheeks. The pale wood\nunderneath looked like a tear streak running down his face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Behind her, heavy\nfootsteps sounded. Lotus had to make a choice. The harp was too heavy\nfor her to carry. But her father had been a pragmatic man and he\u2019d\nraised a pragmatic daughter. Lotus slipped away and climbed down the\nbeanstalk to the world of flowers below the world of clouds. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
#<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Plant beans. And do\nnot mourn me. They were the only two commands her father ever gave\nLotus and they came only a few days before he died. She was never\nable to follow either command. Because, as it turns out, in the real\nworld we don\u2019t get to choose who and how we mourn. It just happens,\nand Lotus found that it happened to her quite a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Beans were out of\nfashion during the season. The great lords who owned the land beneath\ntheir feet, the king and the princes, descendants of the captain of\nthe ship that bore them to this place, were flower mad. Every inch of\nthe greenhouse where Lotus lived and worked had to be used for\nflowers. Carnations, marigolds, roses. Even their food had to taste\nof flowers now, hiding the useful plants, the food and the hemp and\nthe fruit trees, where no visitor might stumble upon them. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lotus had no land of\nher own to grow food plants. She ate dandelion greens and drank\ndandelion wine and pruned the pansies for her lord\u2019s table. She was\nhungry more often than not and if she had any beans she would have\neaten them before she planted them. What did her father understand of\nhunger all those years ago when he held her to that stupid promise?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
#<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She crept up the\nbeanstalk as often as she could to visit her father\u2019s face.\nSometimes, he had been put on a high shelf that she couldn\u2019t reach.\nOn those days, she sat beneath him and pretended she was a small\nchild listening to his stories. Being pragmatic didn\u2019t mean that\nshe was unimaginative. Other days, he sat on the floor beside the\ngiant\u2019s chair and she could study his face and touch his carved\nhair. There were lines on his face that she didn\u2019t remember as a\ngirl. Wrinkles and worry lines that she hadn\u2019t kept in her mind\u2019s\neye. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes she cried\nwhen she looked at him and sometimes she didn\u2019t, because grief is\nweird.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was a giant\nwho lived in the clouds. Lotus didn\u2019t understand how any giant\u2019s\nhand could have carved detail this fine. She preferred not to meet\nthe giant to ask him, though, and she would climb back down the\nbeanstalk as soon as she heard his footsteps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
#<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The beanstalk rose\nout of the extra compost heap behind the gardener\u2019s shed. At first,\nLotus thought she must have been imagining it. She was just a\ngardener\u2019s assistant, but she was quite certain that beanstalks\nonly grew if there were beans to grow them, and they certainly hadn\u2019t\nhad any beans on this land in months. But others noticed it too. They\nwatched it, cultivated it, fertilized it, certain that it would grow\nmore food for them. While the lord ate flowers and fancy bits, the\nservants were ready to dine on beans. When the stalk was too big for\nLotus to wrap both her hands around it, one young hallboy suggested\nthe roast the stalk and eat it without waiting for the beans. Lotus\nwas set to sleep in the compost heap to guard it at night. She didn\u2019t\nmind. It was warm, at least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And of course it was\nLotus, the youngest of the gardening assistants, sent to climb the\nlength of it to look for beans once it was too tall to see the tip\nanymore. On that day, Lotus began to live two lives. One visiting her\nfather in the clouds, away from the cares of the world. And one on\nthe ground amidst the muck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
#<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The greatest fear is\nthe fear of the unknown. A fever swept the land. People started to\ndie \u2013 a lot of people started to die \u2013 and Lotus had to make a\nsimple choice. Did she want to live on the ground, growing crops that\ncould hardly feed them with a sickness consuming everyone she knew?\nOr did she want to live in the clouds, with her father and the giant?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She had no\npossessions to pack. Nothing on this world was hers except the food\nin her stomach. Even the little patch of compost that she slept\nbeside didn\u2019t belong to her. She knew her way up the beanstalk even\nin the pitch darkness by now. The rattling lungs of her fellow\ngardeners fell away as she climbed. The heavy feeling of fluid in her\nown lungs died away and her breathing grew easy as she climbed. The\nvoices of those around her told her to hang on and she appreciated\ntheir confidence in her as she climbed. But even the voices and the\ncool touch of a rag on her forehead fell away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was a giant up\nthere, but she could avoid him easily enough. Her father was waiting\nfor her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lotus had no idea what she was looking at. That is, it was very clear that she was sitting in a giant\u2019s castle, looking at a golden harp with her father\u2019s face carved into one side. She could see where the gold leaf had flaked away on one of his cheeks. The pale wood underneath […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[422,468,1004],"class_list":["post-11339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","tag-flash-fiction","tag-goodbyes","tag-short-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}