SHADOW OF DEATH
Chapter 9: Canna Lilies
Monday through Saturday, Loki found himself rather busier than he liked. Rebuilding a toppled planet proved full of rather mundane tasks like nominating rulers and rebuilding airports and filling power vacuums. He much preferred the conquering to the ruling. Secretary Pierce provided him with a plethora of truly capable minions, but he could not fully relinquish control of their minds until he was assured of their loyalty or he risked further chaos.
Then he was plagued with the difficulties created by his personal army. He was surprised (and rather impressed), to find that the majority of well-planned world conquest was carried out by a mere handful of mortals. These five "Winter Soldiers", as they were called by Pierce, proved to be genetically enhanced and brainwashed soldiers that could destabilize an entire country in one night. This mind spell that held them captive to the will of their master kept them from insurrection but also prevented creative thought and the free action needed of a real armed force. He would need to free them from this mind spell but he did not have the time or the energy yet. He would add it to his ever-growing list of tasks he needed to accomplish.
In the meantime, the scepter easily overtook the power of their mind spell and kept them obedient to his wishes. They were useful enough and so Loki determined to keep them. He sent them around D.C. and New York to help restore some of the infrastructure he desired for ease in transport and communication between cities. They proved slightly less effective at rebuilding as destroying, but still adequate.
Sundays were Loki's day to do as he pleased. He refused to dwell on his mountain of mundane tasks and lurk invisibly around the austere hallways of the Triskelion and instead, he walked the streets of Manhattan. Every Sunday, he laid flowers at the base of the remains of Stark Tower. He supposed he could find something better to do with his time, but try as he might, each Sunday afternoon found him haunting the same streets. He sat on the battered steps, now clean of debris, and watched the city come back to life little-by-little each week.
Loki walked through the ruined city, watching as people began to rebuild, to change, to come back. Shopkeepers fixed broken glass, repaired broken walls, and made the "open" signs blink from their front windows again. Large groups of volunteer workers helped clean up the streets. They came armed with trash cans and shovels and heavy leather gloves. They started some of the work that could be done without heavy machinery.
Hordes of people still slept on the floors of gymnasiums and churches and dance halls-anywhere they could find space-as they waited to determine if they would leave for other regions or stick it out here in the place they called home.
Their home without homes.
He noticed one man who dressed himself in a fine suit, tie, and briefcase and walked the same route every day of the week. Loki followed him and found the man went to the same bench, a concrete bench with a crack through the middle of it, next to the ruins of a building. The man sat on the bench till 5pm each day and then left the way he came. The man never spoke a word, he didn't seem to ever "do" anything. He came, he sat, and he went. Then returned at 8am exactly the next morning.
Another woman came every Sunday to one particular spot where she sat on a wicker chair, dug in the dirt, and held long conversations with herself. He thought her mad at first till he crept close enough to listen. She greeted him and invited him to sit with her on a broken stool.
"I've seen you here before," she said. She wore a loose floral dress and her brown hair was peppered with stripes of grey. She looked at him kindly and he no longer believed her to be mad. He nodded and came to sit beside her though the stool felt precariously unbalanced beneath him.
"We all have our reasons," she said, not asking him his. "I come here to speak with my husband and my three children….I visited my sister that week in Maine…I still wonder if it would have been better if I'd stayed home."
She gave a half smile and fought back some tears.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Look, here," she said. She pointed at what must have once been the back garden of a home. There, she must have worked for weeks to clear away rubble to reveal barren dirt. Sticking out of one small planter, three sprigs of green stuck out of the dirt, about the size of the woman's pinky finger.
"What is it?" he asked.
"It's life," she said and smiled. "It's proof that life goes on, even after so much death."
Loki chatted with the woman for nearly a half hour before they parted ways.
Loki did not return to that side of the city for another three weeks. When he returned, it was a Sunday again and so he decided to see if Mrs. Johnson still came for what she called "Sunday dinner". He found her sitting in her wicker chair, telling her invisible eldest daughter all about the movie she'd seen the night before.
She saw him and waved him over to her. He sat on the broken stool (it creaked and wobbled something awful) and before he could ask her any of the polite, mundane questions one asks with near strangers, her face broke into a brilliant grin and she pointed towards her planter.
There, three tall flowers grew in full bloom. Their petals as red as Thor's cape and their centers a rich gold. Their thick green leaves delicately wrapped their blooms in a cloak of deep emerald.
"Look! They bloomed," she said. "These Canna lilies survived a nuclear blast and being buried under a half ton of concrete and still, they have come back to thrive. Aren't they something?"
"They are beautiful," Loki said.
"They don't have to be," she said. "They could have refused and given up. But no, not only did they determine to grow but then they bloomed too. They could have only made leaves, but they chose to make flowers. I want to be like them," the woman said, a wistful sound in her voice. "I keep wondering what the point is, why I keep waking up in the morning and bother with living…then I saw those flowers and they reminded me. I wake up so I can keep blooming. Even if life gives me the ugliest, most awful circumstances, I can refuse to let it keep me from bringing beauty in the midst of it."
Loki watched the Mrs. Johnson, her face radiant as she basked in the afternoon sun and admired her Canna lilies, all in the shadow of her former home and her former life.
"You already are," he said.
She smiled and patted his hand. "You're sweet," she said.
Then she got up, grabbed a shovel and walked towards the planter. She dug around the base of the plants, drew up a shoot, and placed it in a small pot with some dirt.
"Here," she said. "These will grow pretty much anywhere, as you can see." She handed him the pot.
"Why are you giving me these?" he asked.
"Because you need the reminder too," she said. "You can still come back, too. You don't have to stay buried in the past. Grow, thrive, and make something beautiful out of the place you have been planted."
Her hazel eyes met his and crinkled as she smiled, another tear slipped down her cheek.
"Now, I think I have my dates right…the days all mix together now…but if I remember correctly, today is the day that I give you your message," she said.
"What do you mean?"
"A few months ago, before, well, before everything, I was watering my roses…oh, you would have loved my roses! They were really something! Anyhow, this woman stopped by my gate. She didn't have any hair so at first I thought maybe she was undergoing cancer treatment, but she also wore strange robes…you know, like those Buddhist monks do over at the temple that used to be on Canal Street? But she didn't look Asian. She didn't tell me her name but somehow she knew mine. She called to me and said that when the Canna lilies bloomed again, I would need to give a young man a message for her. Well, I was confused, as you can imagine, because my Canna lilies bloom all summer and fall. It's only when the frost hits that they stop. It was the next day that I left for Maine. It's almost as if she knew what was coming…"
Mrs. Johnson paused and her eyes grew distant as her mind wandered into the recesses of the past. She soon refocused and turned back to Loki. She rummaged through her purse for a moment and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and handed it to him.
"Well, she told me to give this to you, at least I assume it's you since I haven't seen any other young men around since my flowers bloomed. I hope it helps you," she said.
"Thank you, Mrs. Johnson. You have been most kind," he responded as he placed the paper in his pocket to read in privacy.
"We could all use a little more of that these days," she said. She gave his hand another squeeze and turned back to stare at the red and gold glory of her flowers.
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