Behind the Florist's Shop
Originally published in Liminis Literary & Art Magazine Volume 1, Issue 3; Days Don't Fade,
Snapdragon lives behind the florist’s shop in a den of imperfect blooms. The press of the flowers keeps him warm at night. He has only to burrow down in the nest of wilting buds and stems, with his long, scaled tail curled tight about him and his snout tucked in close, and he is fast asleep. His dreams are tinted by the perfume of roses gone over, of honeysuckle and primrose.
Every third day, when the florist – known only to Snapdragon as ‘the Big Man’ – clears out his older stock into the alley, our little friend is more than happy to pounce upon the goods. He noses through the sacks left out for the garden waste collectors and comes out with a mouthful of bluebells. Sometimes there are foxgloves or lilies. Sometimes the sacks are filled with brown-tinted hydrangeas the size of his head. Those are quite the prize. Roses though common are not in his favour; they take too long to de-thorn, and he always ends up with a prickle in his side from sleeping on the one spike he will inevitably have missed.
His den is hidden away inside an old, wooden doghouse that used to be home to the Big Mang’s pet. Now the dog is long gone, and Snapdragon has taken up residence. He has filled the narrow space with flowers whose scents remind him of something he cannot quite remember. An echo of home.
About once a year, always in the heat of summer when Snapdragon sleeps atop the doghouse instead of within, the Big Man takes it upon himself to clear out the rotten, slimy hut. The first time had been an attempt to show Snapdragon he was not welcome. He cleaned it out, turned it so that the entry hole faced the wall, and stuck a note to the roof asking the bin men to take it away.
Snapdragon cried so pitifully when he returned to the alley to find his home inaccessible – no matter how much he scratched his claws down the planks – that it broke the Big Man’s heart. The house was turned around, the note removed.
Now, the annual cleaning is more out of a desire to reduce the stench in the alley under the summer sun than to scare Snapdragon off. On particularly cold nights in the long winter months, the Big Man has been known to drape a blanket over the roof of the doghouse and buy sacks of down feathers to set out in the alley alongside his old flowers.
In a few years’ time, Snapdragon will overcome the last vestiges of his distrust for the Big Man and push his snout through the cat flap in the back door. It should be noted that the Big Man has never owned a cat, will never own a cat, and only installed the flap three years after Snapdragon took up residence in the alley.
It will be another three weeks before Snapdragon dares to touch a talon to the tiled floor of the shop, and even longer before he tucks his torn wings in close to his body and slips through the flap, tail and all. For a month, he will simply sit there. He will watch the Big Man moving about the shop, serving customers. Should the florist look to be heading Snapdragon’s way, he will dart back outside and into his nest.
The doghouse will edge closer to the back door. The Big Man moves it whenever he is sure Snapdragon is off play-hunting with moon-cats, and soon the house stands right next to the step. It is not long after that when the Big Man will be allowed to stroke Snapdragon’s spiney head and scratch under his chin. There will always be fresh flowers for his bed – cleaned out once a week instead of once a year. The doghouse will eventually be forgotten outside in favour of a disused bread bin in the Big Man’s kitchen above the shop.
In the last of his winter years, Snapdragon will slip away peacefully, curled up in the Big Man’s lap beside the fire, a hand stroking his scales, his belly pleasantly full, and the scent of lavender in his snout.
But that is all still in the future. For now, Snapdragon sleeps behind the florist’s shop in a bed of old flowers.