If They Weren't

김남준

     Through the brown and green branches of the trees I see the blossoming pink Magnolias and my smile cracks into a small laugh. My sweet getaway, my beautiful Magnolia flowers. Vivid images of my mom ripple through my mind in black, white, and pink. Her laugh, her smile, the way she'd roll her eyes after I said something stupid. I miss the mornings we would spend underneath the Magnolia tree in our backyard. Both of us with tea and coffee, propped up against the trunk soaking in the morning atmosphere. They were her favorite; her favorite everything. Smell, tree, flower, color, essence. Magnolia was also my endearment from her. 'Little Magnolia,' she'd say in a voice softer than the petals of the flowers themselves. Even after her death the softness and serenity of the memories with her never faded. They rested on the branches of the Magnolia trees. Ever since I lost her to cancer the world hasn't been the same, but one thing has always stayed. The Magnolias.

     She used to bring me here when I was a little girl myself. at the time there were only a few magnolia sprouts, small and simple. At first I thought they were just simple plants, but she treated them like gold. She told me that the essence of nature refused to be contained within park walls, so the Magnolias dared travel outside the barrier and start their own life here. Without being official park material, or monitored, or plucked endlessly by greasy selfish fingers. I remember asking her how they got there and she just smiled at me. Later I came to realize that the amount of trees grew each time we came and she had brought a seed pack this time for me to plant. It became a sacred event, private time with my mother and the Magnolias. She was beautiful anywhere, but when she was most beautiful was when she was surrounded by those Magnolia trees.

The cancer was sudden, abrupt. Or at least that's what I thought until I found out she had be fighting it for a long time and never told me. I held it against her for a while, until I realized she did it as to not depress me. She refused to see me sad, even on her death bed. I had ran straight to the Magnolia garden that night, and cried myself to sleep under one of the trees. I felt her there that night, in the trees, and she's been there ever since. On her one year death anniversary, I fashioned a wooden park bench with the help of a youtube video and placed it right in the middle of the Magnolia patch. It became a memorial for her, I got an engraving of her name and "Little Magnolia" on a bronze plate and bolted it to the back of the bench, of which I painted the same pink as the Magnolia petals. Many of my nights were spent in a sleeping bag on that bench, and still are.

I was beginning to think tonight would be one of them too, the thought of going back home was the least comforting. The necklace begins to slip around in my palm with sweat from gripping it so hard, but I just hold it tighter to channel my anger. The smell of the Magnolias grows potent and dots of pink cross my vision through fat green branches. I smile. Part of me, for whatever reason, always worried that when I rounded that corner before the clearing the Magnolias would be gone. They couldn't vanish overnight, but I was always fearful they would. I proceed forward with energy, but my smile turns into a deep frown and ice crawls up my spine when the bench comes into view, and a figure sitting on it as well.

I freeze, suddenly so angry I can't think. Never in my time coming here had I seen someone else sitting on that bench, or even remotely in that area, and it offended me so deeply I almost scoff out loud. I remind myself not to squeeze the seeds in my hand too hard or else I would crush them. I take a step or so back so I can spy on this figure before I approach them. Sitting on one side, the left side of the bench is a man, a tall man, who looks to be about twenty six or twenty seven years old, just based off of his side profile. He is in a grey dress suit, almost purple in color and very out of place. He is holding a large umbrella, it is white, and it isn't raining either. In fact the sky is perfectly clear. If I wasn't so furious that he had invaded my privacy, I might have thought he was handsome. He has shining ivory skin, close cropped coal black hair, styled with gel in the front with a strand or two falling down his forehead and resting on his eyebrows. His legs are long, his knees arch up as he sits on the bench, and his arms are neatly folded into his lap, one hand around the handle of the umbrella, the other limp on his waist. I watch him, seeing what he would do. He simply sits there, staring into the trees in front of him without moving, only so to take a breath or reposition his umbrella when the wind moves it. Seeing that he isn't going to get up and leave anytime soon, I can no longer bite my tongue.