The Azalea

It has been a normal day, without any unexpected happenings.  I was enjoying the little freedom given to me, known as weekend. I had been dozing off on my really comfortable bed watching a film, when I heard a collapsing sound.

I listened attentively, observing if someone else would go to check out what had happened, but unfortunately, I didn’t hear anyone else’s rushing footsteps. If I had heard any, I wouldn’t have had to deal with the unpleasant thing of getting up and leaving the room.

“I was sitting so comfortably, though,” I thought, annoyed.

I was about to step over the treshhold when I heard a gentle voice, almost whispering from the windowsill.

“Be careful, if you see today anyone from your family, you will become unlucky for an entire year,” warned me the voice.

I turned around starled, but there wasn’t anyone standing behind me.

“Perhaps I was just imagining it, right? There’s no one,” I reassured myself.

However, one minute later the voice repeated the exact same words. That was the moment when I thought that it was enough. I slowly approached my windowsill, and started at the flowers placed there. The middle one was new, I had just got it yesterday, a huge flowery azalea.  Something felt strange about it, so I carefully lowered my head and moved closer.

“What… who are you?” I stuttered as I saw a little fairy sitting on a flower petal.

“That’s a not essential, but I’m usually called Elena. You need to listen to me,” she said. “I have the ability to see people’s future,” she continued with a serious face.

“Are you trying to say that what you had said about being unlucky wasn’t a lie?” I could believe her sayings were honest and true.

“Exactly,” she claimed. “Whether you believe or not.”

If only she hadn’t disappeared, as I was determined to ask her a number of questions. Everything around me started to blur. The flowers, the window, even the soft breeze, everything became darkness. I gasped and sat up quickly.

My room was quiet, the movie was still playing on the screen. I looked around confused.

"Was that... just a dream?" I whispered to myself. But as I glanced at my windowsill, my heart skipped a beat. The middle flower, the one Elena had sat at, was slightly tilted, as if someone had been there. I hesitantly touched the middle flower. It was cool and soft beneath my fingers, just like it had been before.

“Maybe it was just my imagination,” I tried to convince myself. But deep down, a small part of me wondered, “What if it wasn’t?”

What if Elena was  real, even just for a moment? And what if her warning still mattered?

Miklós Csenge   IX. H