When he woke up, he was startled to find himself in the kitchen. That night he practically blacked out. No dreaming. Just blackness. When he first awoke, he was frightened by the chair again. Sideways on the ground.

With a tremble, he arose from the hard floor and fled for the main room. The memory of what happened last night still had him frightened and the silent darkness added to his fear. Even in the fields as he scattered the seeds with a shaky hand, the memory gripped him. He tried not to think about it but the memories all fluttered back.

As he thought though, he felt an inmost calm. It was a realization that finally released him. That was just like his father. The hard demeanor, the suffocating grip. It had to be his father. Who else would it have been? His father always did have a grip like a steel-trap. He could specifically recall his father lifting him in that crushing hug after he won some stupid contest-Mark really couldn't remember what it was for but his father squeezed him so tight he thought he would die.

He chuckled at the memory.

As he did, the chuckle choked into a stifled moan as he felt the tears tumbling back down. He tried wiping at his eyes as he felt his chest quivering. Dirt gritted against his cheeks and eyes from the tarnished gloves.

Daddy…

The memory came back gain, it was painful this time. The tears stung as he tried to choke them back. His tools were left lying beside him as he wept. The grainy image of him beside his father, a fish dangling from the end of a fishing line, after a fishing trip burned into his mind.

I'm sorry… He felt his own body rocking and he couldn't stop. The day he left, it was burned too. It's not like he wanted to go but he just couldn't take it anymore. Mother left too… He sniffled hard, sucking back all the mucus dribbling down his nostrils. We both left. He didn't have a choice. Mother felt the same way. What happened after he left? He's thought about it many times over. Did father remain in the shadowy doorway cloaked in darkness? Did he feel sad? Did he miss him during dinner? How long did he stay like that until Takakura found him?

But father's back. He smiled despite the tears. They trailed down and wetted his lips. Father's here now. I won't leave him again. I will be a good son. He wiped at his tears some more, suddenly realizing that he was out in the open. If Takakura saw him like this…

His head suddenly shot up again. The window.

Maybe it was his father who had been opening the window. He imagined it, his father's thick arms lifting the pane. He grinned some more. Yeah, his father was quite the trickster, scaring him like that. He could see the grin that was probably on his father's face when he did it.

It was in the afternoon that Mark when about gathering all the mist moon and happy lamp flowers in the valley and laid them out in the doorway of the house. "Father… I know you aren't big into flowers but" he paused, "this is all I knew to do"

He carefully lifted his head and rolled his eyes around the room. The hazy summer sunlight cast white light into the room through the open windows. Dust particles floated in the light like fuzz. It was only when Mark lifted his hands above the flowers that he thought he saw them move.

The red and yellow petals were a strange decoration and Takakura inquired about it a few days later when he noticed. By that time, the kitchen table and dressers were bound with them. Stacked on top of each other, piles and piles of flowers.

Takakura was quite surprised by them.

"Mark, what is all this?" he asked, his eyes opening for the first time under his heavy wrinkles. He was nauseated by the cloying smell of the usually odorless flowers. They were absolutely everywhere. Hanging from hooks on the walls, off the ends of the dresser, the book-shelf, the kitchen table. Mark came walking in from behind him, Takakura had not entered the house-not that he had to- he was quite perplexed from the doorway.

Petals rested at his feet. "You're collecting flowers?" He turned to Mark, his eyes not quite leaving the entryway. When he turned, his foot upturned one or two of the petals. "Takakura be careful!" Mark immediately lunged to the floor. He made show of scooping and readjusting the petals in an ever-so delicate fashion.

"Mark what is all this?"

"You have to be careful. It took me forever to make them how he likes them"

"How who likes them?"

Mark didn't respond, too busy fiddling with the petals. He had his head flat on its side just to make sure. "Mark?" Takakura was quite taken aback.

Mark rose to his knees. "Is there a reason you came over?"

Takakura was silent for a few moments, thoroughly bumfuzzled. "I… just wanted to see how you were holding up but I see that…you have your own…habits already" There wasn't much to say. Mark gathered to his feet. "Okay, yeah I'm actually kind of busy now"

"Oh, yeah? Collecting flowers?" his gaze drifted back indoors.

"Yeah. The flowers throughout the valley are pretty and they regrow pretty quickly too" Mark dusted his gloves off. "Well, you know the flowers would be a good way to start getting money… and with all you've collected…"

"No-" Mark cut in. "I'm using them actually" he responded, still looking into the home. His gaze seemed to be looking into the distance. "Mark…are you okay? I know that it has only been a few days since you got here. If you need anything-"

"'Then just tell me' I know, I know" he repeated back with a laugh. "I'm fine. But I am busy so can you leave?" The forwardness in his speech took Takakura by surprise but he did.

After his departure, Mark resumed his duties. Mainly binding and looping the stems of the flowers together into long chains as he sat on the floor. "Father, do you like this?" He asked, raising it up. For the past few days this is all he has done. The seeds he had planted have hardly been watered in that time.

He knows when his father likes them because they shift when he does and fly when he doesn't. Sometimes Mark even feels a little slap when he's twisted them wrong. He knows father can be short-tempered. He always was slap-happy. Never to his mother. Never. But to Mark… Only after his mother left did he start to hit. So when Mark felt a jab to the skull after displaying a flower crown on the kitchen table, he wasn't shocked. If he just did it right then it wouldn't happen again. Besides, he was happy just to have his father back.

The flowers ebbed and waved in the cross breeze through the open window. He's never known his father to like flowers but in the last two nights, he's sure he's seen the flowers shifting and moving on their own. At first he only had enough to bind a bouquet but now he has enough to bind fifty. He must admit, at first he bound them for his father but at some point he was binding them trying to outdo the last one. It quickly became its own contest and it was quite therapeutic. It helped relieve some of the stress that he had from moving there. From the stares. From that strange comment.

"Done!" he raised it up. He broke a few heads on the lamps flowers but it still looked pretty spiffy. Flowers aside, it had become late in the evening by the time he finished. He was finding new ways to make tomatoes and fish like: fish and tomatoes and tomatoes and fish, fish in the center with tomatoes at the side, and tomatoes in the center and fish at the side.

As he ate in the chair that was toppled over on that night, a strange feeling overwhelmed him. Feeling that, he made another plate and placed it across from him. He sat in silence, feeling goofy for doing this.

As he ate, he kept peeking over to the other plate. After a few moments, he cleared his voice.

"So father… how are you?"

He waited in silence as nothing happened. He listened closely but the room was even more still than usual. His father can't be far so he knows he can hear him. "I uh… had a busy day"

As he chomped on the fish, he had his full attention on the plate waiting for a response. The flowers on the table seemed duller. His ears perked when he heard it. The sound of wood on wood. He paused and continued to listen. "Sorry. I have to check that out"

He arose from the chair, scratching his head. Petals littered the floor. As he left the kitchen he saw the front door wide open and flapping in the night. He wasn't in a hurry until he saw the petals fluttering in the night breeze. "Hey!" he dashed to the door and was quick to yank it back. The wind was howling against the beaten frame and the petals washed passed his feet like the ocean's tide.

Although it was early night, the farm was easily illuminated by the moon. As the door came to a sudden close though, the room was darkened. His hands disappeared in it. Only the moonlight through the windows shone any pale warmth. Mark scuttled about trying to gather the petals from the darkness, only to kick them about and needlessly step on them.

As he bent to pluck them up, he heard a familiar scrapping from the kitchen. "I'll be right back" he called. Immediately after, he was startled to death by the deafening shatter of glass. "Father!" he ceased his efforts and bound for the door.

As he opened it he was caught in a whirlwind of petals. It was so powerful he had to shield his sight from the wind. No open window could cause this. He tried backing away but his body was victim to the pull of the wind. The petals were cast in the vortex, spinning and twirling in the violence. "Father!" he cried but the wind howled in his ears and any sound under the wind was silenced.

He felt himself fall to the floorboards. The chair was shaking and writhing with the table. All he could do was take cover with his hands wrapped tightly around his head. But as soon as it started, it ended. Only when the petals softly fluttered back to the ground did Mark peek through his elbows. Hundreds, thousands, of petals laid scattered across the room. The floor was blanketed with them, they made a sweater for him along his back.

He peeked around the room like a fawn, glancing around for the slightest of threats to send himself running. His own breath frightening him. He wasn't quite sure what to think. The window in the room wasn't even open. It could not be blamed.

As he arose from the floor, he was startled again by the shattering glass. It was a plate. It had suddenly fallen. Mark had seen it from the corner of his eye. He saw the whiteness of it drop from high above him. The ceiling?

He slowly when throughout the room making a trail of petals behind him like snow. The porcelain plate was broken in seven pieces, the food was scattered all along the petals. What of the shattering before the vortex? There was another plate completely shattered into pieces but the food remained in place.