Confined among the ladies, each with their own workstation and gift, we sat together smelling flowers, drawing pictures, and drinking multi-colored brew. We laughed -- some enjoyed themselves. When the alarm went off I was the one sent to investigate, of course while the only three men in the house cowered behind the curtains in their pajamas. I switched lights on and off in the dining room downstairs, in the kitchen, I even opened the refrigerator to get a drink and some grapes. I found nothing of alarm. The grapes, however, were rainbow colored, which they said would eventually change. The house secured, I returned to the ladies. As they started to grow afraid, I had to make it stop. I organized their table, polished their spoons, made sure all the gifts were in matching pastel colors. I filled the plates – striped melons and rainbow grapes, tortillas and seeds and leaves. Flora finally entered -- everyone froze. She told us the fruit we were eating was hers. She put her gift on the table, but it did not match the rest. Then when she started to sing, I knew. Many of the ladies were soothed and stared as Flora constructed the notes of her song. But something had to be done. I grabbed her present from the table, along with 2 others, and threw them all against the fireplace. Flora stopped singing, and started walking toward me. The ladies looked down, I think I saw one of them drool, others moaned. Flora threw our colorful brew on the gifts, the fire ceased and the wrappings dripped. The wrappings turned orange, the fire turned blue. Finally the flowers turned black. A lady calmly sat across from me at the end of the table, coloring in eyes in her picture with a red marker. Flora was gone.
2005