THE YELLOW DAHLIA

They say that two people aren't close friends if they don’t find it exceptionally normal to do the silliest things together. And it is because of this frankness that they remain dearest to one’s heart.

The memories of the times spent with close friends roll into a ball like a ball of wool, where pulling at one unwinds all others. For some time now, in my world, it has been the yellow dahlia that has unfurled this spool of memory.

It all began one afternoon. Two young women sat facing each other, their constant smiles breaking into carefree laughter every few seconds.  They were in a corner in a long cozy room, the black walls of which bent to meet at the ceiling and sheltered the small, white, marble - top tables that were lined along the length of them. A yellow dahlia lay buttoned at the center of each little table.

“The item I order always arrives the latest.” She said, while she rolled her thoughts up and down the menu book. “I am always left to stuff scalding food into myself when everybody else is ready to leave.”  

She had to yell over the crowd of words and laughter that zoomed across the room. Waiters spun and glided through the buzz. The whole café was a Ball. And there she was, in a corner, pouring packet after packet of sugar into her Kenyan coffee, watching her friend devour her salad and fish-n-chips. Life was refreshing. This coffee was art.

They say that every time you open your eyes, you see the world anew.

That day she appeared a flower. Today, looking down upon her, sitting quietly at the table, it is hard to say who complemented whom: the yellow dahlia, her or she, the yellow dahlia.

The two women had spent their college life together. That wasn’t a long time. But it was time enough to have grown together and have inspired a thicket of memories. That afternoon they were there, beside each other for the last time. The next day they’d each fly with the wind and find a new home in another wood.

A golden light swung across strings of bulbs hanging from the ceiling. Her sandwich arrived. They chatted away the afternoon and when more people stumbled into the room and it began to overflow, they moved to stroll among the maze of books in an adjoining room. Their last adventure became one among wishes and memories.

The thing with people is: they make you smile. They let you wrap them up in your heart. And then they leave your life; like the brook that flows past its banks. And you leave theirs. And nobody ever knows how to say goodbye.

“We’ll skype.” She said through her fluttering smile.

In a few seconds a train will take her away. In a distant wood, there will be another yellow dahlia.

“Of course.” I smiled back.