There’s this place. Somewhere beyond the peripheries of day and night – when the candied reds and oranges of a setting sun give way to muted blues and deep indigoes. Somewhere in that strange doorway between awake and asleep, when you’re drifting, untethered to neither one reality nor the next. It is neither here, nor there, but it always appears to those who need it – sometimes tucked in between the steady hum of a busy café and the peaceful stillness of a bookstore, sometimes right on the corner of a thrumming intersection, and sometimes at the end of a lonely street.>>
It’s a shop, of sorts. Set in rows of sepia toned stone with an unassuming wooden door, faded blue, paint peeling from age. Above it, a perfect nautilus circle of windows – stained glass decorated with swirls of flowers – casting a kaleidoscope of impossible colours in its wake. Beyond the windows, there’s a soft yellow glow. You don’t quite remember how you got here, but there’s something about it – warm and comforting – that makes you want to reach out to it.Enter
A string of bells chime above your head on your way in. The soft yellow glow from earlier washes over the store, illuminating the otherwise organised chaos of flora blooming across the walls and the floor –
A string of bells chime above your head on your way in. The soft yellow glow from earlier washes over the store, illuminating the otherwise organised chaos of flora blooming across the walls and the floor –
A string of bells chime above your head on your way in. The soft yellow glow from earlier washes over the store, illuminating the otherwise organised chaos of flora blooming across the walls and the floor –
A string of bells chime above your head on your way in. The soft yellow glow from earlier washes over the store, illuminating the otherwise organised chaos of flora blooming across the walls and the floor –
A string of bells chime above your head on your way in. The soft yellow glow from earlier washes over the store, illuminating the otherwise organised chaos of flora blooming across the walls and the floor –
A string of bells chime above your head on your way in. The soft yellow glow from earlier washes over the store, illuminating the otherwise organised chaos of flora blooming across the walls and the floor –
the opalescent core of what looks like a giant oyster shell casting faint pinks and blues across the water it holds, its surface dotted with lotus blooms, delicate petals coloured shades of pink and white.>>
Little trinkets line the walls – gems and stones in rose quarts and obsidian, a broken teacup held together by tape, a toy race car, a plush bunny. There’s a faint smell pervading your senses, but it’s not the onslaught of flowers, it’s something familiar and comforting –
Little trinkets line the walls – gems and stones in rose quarts and obsidian, a broken teacup held together by tape, a toy race car, a plush bunny. There’s a faint smell pervading your senses, but it’s not the onslaught of flowers, it’s something familiar and comforting –
Little trinkets line the walls – gems and stones in rose quarts and obsidian, a broken teacup held together by tape, a toy race car, a plush bunny. There’s a faint smell pervading your senses, but it’s not the onslaught of flowers, it’s something familiar and comforting –
warm afternoons and your grandmother’s freshly baked cookies.>>
Just as you’re beginning to wonder where exactly you are, there’s a clatter of objects, a small, disgruntled “Ouch!”, a mutter of “I’ll be right there!”, a “very sorry about this”, and an “Artie, what did I say about bringing the flowers to life?!”, before a girl tumbles out of the door behind the store counter. She’s dressed in a black dress, hair woven through with little flowers, and what looks like a pair of yellow gumboots. A young boy in brown trousers and a white shirt follows her out of the room. He’s carrying a pot in his hands – at the centre of it is a single daisy. A green blush blooms on his cheeks and the tip of his nose, through to the very ends of his pointed ears, when he clears his throat quietly.>>
Upon closer inspection, you realise that the daisy is humming to the tune of ‘Here Comes the Sun’.<<
“Oh! Right, yes, hello!” the girl beams, “I’m Mabel, the Witch of Good Memories, and this is my flower shop!”
Mabel, the witch, throws her hands out to her sides in an over-exaggerated show of jazz fingers and taps a foot to the ground. There’s a brief pause before the boy beside her lets out a small “pfft” before quickly clamping his mouth shut and looking away. Mable stomps her foot again, a little more resolutely this time, and a pointed hat materialises atop her head.“And that little green gremlin over there is my apprentice, Artie.”>>
“Did you say… this is a flower shop?” you repeat, “and that you’re a witch?” you add, almost as an afterthought.“Yes, and yes! Any flower you can imagine. Sometimes people stumble into my little shop in search of something for someone they love, or for themselves. So, I make these flowers, fill them with my hopes and dreams, so that they can last a lifetime, and longer after that. All I ask in return is for them to share a story or a happy memory, and sometimes they even leave me an item that they cherish as a ‘thank you’ gift! If you’d like to take a look around at our flowers, or anything anyone has left with me, they’re now your memories to share too.”
