Bluebells

Yesterday I went out and got some necessary dull stuff done. The clouds came rolling in, it had already rained and was going to rain some more. Then from the old railway bank came a scent I haven't smelled in years; bluebells, sweet and delicate, yet somehow pungent, spilling out everywhere into the grey wet.

Many decades ago, there was a guy. He was a challenging young man, artistic and intelligent, not handsome but charismatic enough. We could never be a thing because he knew I was utterly ridiculous and for me he was a simple nope/no way on the physical level. He became the long term squeeze of a friend of mine, and she had to have the patience of a saint to deal with him. But one fantastic gift he had was this: you never had to make conversation. Voluble though he was, he was also totally at ease with silence, no awkwardness about it. Once he was driving me home and we were enjoying one of those easy quiets. Then he just stopped the car apropos of nothing, next to a wood. He leapt out and disappeared among the trees, and I carried on dreaming as I had been, of the king of the wood or some Cernunnos/Herne the Hunter type vision. In my head I heard the words Think of me when you see bluebells. Time passed. Guy returned with arms full of bluebells, which he promptly dumped on top of me.

I told him he shouldn't have done it, that these flowers are protected.

'The woods are full,' he said, 'they can spare you a few bluebells.'

I went home in a fragrant trance.

I don't know what happened to my friends, they moved to Scotland, we met up a few times, and then life carried us all away from each other. But I smelled that beautiful scent again yesterday, saw the bluebells trailing down the bank under the trees. And remembered that voice in my head long ago.