"Nature Girl"
Captain Maria Chavez placed the last folder in the "out" box and sighed. Burnout. Every jobholder in New York knew it and had to deal with it. Living in a crowded city and its accompanying traffic jams and seeming shortage of fresh oxygen only seemed to aggravate it.
Maybe I need a vacation. But then I'll come back to more crime reports and more paperwork. It never ends. When you close one case, three more come in. Frustrated, Maria glanced at her Mickey Mouse wall clock. Where are Bluestone and Maza with that report!
She noticed a vase on her desk, containing a bouquet of nightblooms. Undoubtedly from Rawlins the suck-up. Mr. Chavez had stopped sending Maria flowers shortly after their fifth anniversary.
A hairy caterpillar was chewing on one of the leaves. The police captain gently shook it off the flower and placed him in her paper-clip tray, adding a piece of lettuce from dinner's salad. The tiny caterpillar munched happily.
That little thing doesn't have to worry about deadlines or catching crooks. He or she just eats and when it feels ready, pupates. Then it waits until it can come out. And butterflies just float around, nothing to care about except their next meal. When was the last time I saw one?
Her eyes moved to the beautiful nightblooms, flowers that opened during the night and closed during the day. There were a dozen, six black and six maroon. Beads of dew were scattered on the petals. Maria touched one. It felt like velvet. Tiny flakes of pollen deposited on her finger.
That's the bad thing about Manhattan. Concrete and steel. Not a lot of nature, save for Central Park. But Central Park just feels impersonal. Not to mention all the muggers and dope-pushers that hang out there. But these flowers are so pretty and smell so sweet. I remember when I was a little girl and I picked bouquets of dandelions...
Elisa Maza and Matt Bluestone burst in, carrying folders and both looking ragged. The pair expected to be chewed out by their tough-as-nails boss, but could hardly believe their ears when they heard three little words:
"Come back later!"
The End