Daisies

I drifted into a hazy consciousness as I tried to remember. 

The air was sweet. I remember that: air that was like a fragile daisy. The sky was a light and meaningful blue, uninterrupted by the grey puffs that currently seemed to plague it every day. And the sun, the sun seemed to lace itself between the cracks that separated the surrounding houses. I was wearing a grey jacket and a white shirt. With shoes that were… red? Yes. Red. The world was warm. Warm, but not humid. I had read about humidity in old books that I found in the library. Of course, nobody had even dreamt of humidity in 100 years. Not after the water turned brown, the sky grey, and the grass a dead shade of tan. The Earth had been… no. 

Remember.

Now, the walls. They were… green? No, not green. Blue! Yes. With blue stairs as well. There were different colors on the walls, too. Yellow. But not just yellow…  red, and orange, and every color of every old sunset I’d ever seen. Flowers. That’s what they were. Flowers in colorful pots. Roses and tulips and daisies. And everything, all of the color and serenity, just coexisted for a split second. For a moment, it was real.  And then I felt myself wake up.

The last thing on my mind: daisies.

Grandma had told me about daisies. She told me about all sorts of flowers she used to see. How marvelous they were. How cruel people were to them. She told me how the world used to be covered in grass and light. I imagined a pinkish sky at dusk rather than a dreary grey. I replaced the ashes that lined sleeping streets with flourishing, green grass. And as for the dead shrubs that surrounded my city, I pictured daisies. 

But the more I sat in my bed, still groggy from the sudden wake, the more I forgot. And I drifted into a hazy consciousness as I tried to remember.

The air was sweet. I remember that: air that was like a fragile daisy.