The elder man had seen far too much in his weary days on earth. The once youthful and carefree man was now old and wrinkled, just a faded shadow of what he used to be. He had seen war, violence, fear, and still he lived to tell about it. The stories were now regarded as a fragment of his dementia riddled mind, but he still told them as if he had lived them. He spoke highly of many people, held in such high regard. But there was one thing that triggered a memory so intense, even he couldn't pass it off as just nothing.
Every so often, his daughter would come to visit him. She was the spitting image of her mother. She had her mother's dark brown curls, the same mossy green eyes, and the most beautiful smile. His wife had spent so much time grooming the girl, that she had nearly given her everything while he was at war. Their daughter grew up in the flower shop, often helping out and doing chores, arranging plants and helping soldiers pick flowers for their brides back home. It was their dream - to run a flower shop one day.
In fact, that's how he'd met her.
On this particular sunny day, he was sitting on the porch, his muddled mind thinking of all the things that had once been and now become of his life. He couldn't remember much of his past, sans friends and family that inspired him. He didn't talk much. But on this day, he looked to his daughter with hollow green eyes and smiled. Somewhere in the breeze was a blossoming Lilac tree, billowing in the wind and dancing around his senses. "...Lilac." Came his simple reply.
The child reached over and rested a hand on his, a soft smile on her own features. "It smells like mama's perfume today, doesn't it?"
That small, intimate moment he shared with his child was enough to remind him of the days gone by. The day where he first met the clumsy woman carrying a basket of fresh cut Lilac, and the scent that had followed him all through his life. It always reminded him of his late wife, Gracia. Maes couldn't deny that on days like these, he liked to sit in the sun and smell the scent she left behind.
Written for Onileo and InternalPathara, whom requested at work that we do a "story exchange". My challenge prompt was "Oil and Water".
