I closed the car window as soon as I smelled it, and even then, the odor found a way in from some interstice or another. It was only a matter of time before the rows of pine trees on my left and right gave way to a vast expanse of round fields of grass exposing the culprits of the smell: cows leisurely chewing on grass.
Maybe I should have laughed, maybe I should have found it funny that I could smell them from kilometers away.
But I didn’t.
You see, I was in a foul mood. I drove out of Montreal to change my ideas. Because I needed—quite ironically—to breathe some fresh air.
All because of a supper I had been invited to. My friend, Jeanne was there. You see, I was secretly fancying of her and waited only for an opportunity to tell her how I felt. But each time a good situation presented itself, I made excuses, thinking maybe the perfect situation wasn’t perfect enough. What if she said no? What if she laughed? What if this? What if that?
I reality, I just lacked the guts.
So we all were chit-chatting when—and I don’t know why the conversation went there—Jeanne stared dreamily at the ceiling and said: “One day, I’ll marry a man and he’ll be strong and he’ll be rich and we’ll love each other.”
Her words had shaken me up greatly. Was I strong? I could always go to the gym and biology would do the rest. Was I rich?
No. I was no engineer. I’m an artist, a wanderer. I like long walks and reading books. I wasn’t born a rich man and the odds were I wasn’t going to become one either.
So I sulked for the rest of the evening. And couldn’t find sleep back home. And decided I needed to breathe some fresh air.
Cow dung fresh air.
God, the cow dung…
So I drove past the cows and arrived at the small town of Saint-Michel-des-Saints. It seemed like a small, isolated community, a nice place away from the constant hum of Montreal.
And I was hungry. The cow smell must have made me forget it, but I had been driving for hours and I yearned for food.
So I found the nearest (and only) supermarket.
The place, I must admit, looked quite nice. It’s always easy for me, as a city dweller, to forget that sometimes rural regions often have the same commodities as I do back in Montreal. It had food neatly stacked in rows, air-conditioner, automatic doors and everything one would expect from a normal supermarket.
I wandered the alleys searching for a cheap meal when something caught my eyes, something slightly out of the ordinary—I always had an eye for such things—and I couldn’t resist staring at it.
I saw a long, buzzing freezer filled with red meat. But it was leaking in a corner. To address the issue someone had placed a bucket below the leak. But the funny thing? Someone had put a flower in it. I thought it was cute, so I grabbed my phone and took a picture.
As I trod in the bread section, I couldn’t shake the image of the bucket with the flower out of my head. I knew there was something poetic about it and I ruminated about it until it finally hit me. The leak. The bucket. A helpless situation salvaged by the presence of a delicate flower. It was a true revelation.
And I knew what I had to do.
I went back to the bucket as fast as I could.
But the flower was gone.
All that was left was an empty bucket. Panicked, I stopped an employee passing by.
“Sorry miss, but there was a flower in that bucket right there under the freezer and now it’s gone. You wouldn’t happen to know what happened to it?”
“Oh! I just put the flower there as a joke. I threw it in the trash when I emptied the bucket.” She must have seen the disappointment on my face. “But I took it from a bouquet on the fruit section. You can take one from there if you want; I don’t think anyone would mind. Here let me show you.”
She brought me to the bouquet. I picked one of the white flowers and let it rest in my hand as though it was a precious ring made of silver.
“But sir,” she said, “what’s so special about it?”
I kept staring at the delicate petals. “Because I know I’m not perfect. In a way, I’m a broken man, but I’m in love and I know just the person to give this flower to.”
And guess what? It smelled so wonderful!
Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Inspiration Travel Writing competition and tell your story.
