The empty blue vase stood on the round white table in the kitchen. Early morning light crept through the jalousie’s slats and extended its fingers to the smooth surface of the vase. The glass was cool. Soft sunlight travelled across the blue plane. The stripes of light by contrast deepened the color untouched by the sun’s rays.

She had been sitting in the kitchen since dawn. When she reached out her hand to touch the vase, the sunlight crossed her pale skin, highlighting blue veins that emptied like rivers into the surrounding glass ocean.

She watched him enter the room and bring his cereal to the table. He settled himself, spreading out the morning paper. The crunch of cereal sounded along with the kitchen clock and the dripping faucet. Quietly she pushed the vase towards him when he got up for coffee. As he sat down again he slid the vase away to make room for the mug and methodically made his way through the paper. For a while she watched him as her hand once more followed the cool contours of the vase. Then she reprimanded him for leaving out the milk and walked out of the room.

A shock of cold air met him at the doorstep. He pulled up his coat collar and bent into the wind as he walked to the station. A muddle of thoughts sought his attention. His dark suit needed to be brought to the cleaners by tomorrow. He had forgotten to renew his gym membership. New client emails had to be sent out by 5:00 PM. He needed to call his wife and tell her to buy bananas and power bars when she went out shopping. His job gave him no time for any if it. Cars began to fill the street. Exhaust built up, caught by the cold air. Bracing himself, he hurried on. He was pleased to see that his timing was perfect. The train was pulling into the station. Along with the rest, he pushed his way on board, determined to find a seat. Just as a woman was getting up to move to a three seater, he slipped into her spot. This was going to be a good day.

Hours ago, she had raised the blind. The sun flooded the room. The vase sprang up alive in the light. She had loved this vase since her childhood. Her mother had kept it on the table by the large picture window. In the summer months she and her mother would choose flowers from their garden to place in the vase. She had cherished this gathering of blossoms. With each snip of the scissors she would quietly thank the flowers. Each petaled shape was a living thing that brought beauty into their house. In the cold months they traveled to a nearby nursery. It had seemed a miracle to her that she could find flowers when snow shrouded the landscape. This journey for beauty and the act of choosing filled her with a deep, private joy. She became more radiant for it. Once home she would sit near the vase as she caught the perfume of the bouquet. Some scents brashly filled the air while others whispered their fragrance. At times she would recite Robert Burns’s “A Red Red Rose”: “Oh, my Luve is like a red red rose that’s newly sprung in June. Oh, my Luve is like the melody that’s sweetly played in tune.” Sometimes to her delight her father would sing the ballad as he had been fond of Scottish tunes. Love and flowers and beauty mixed together like paint on an empty canvas.

She continued to sit as the light once again shifted in the kitchen. She had no earth to plant her garden. Instead she had to content herself with the potted flowers that the condo management put out during the summer months. The vase too often stayed empty. As it now fell into deeper shadows she began to cry. She lamented the lonely blankness of her life. She wept for her dead mother and dead father. As dusk fell, her sorrow grew and began to fill the empty vase.

The old man next to him held flowers which rested in his lap. His head had begun to nod as the evening rush-hour train picked up speed. The train rocked gently, singing a distant lullaby. Then he felt something. At first it was faint like a whisper. Within a minute he understood the light pressure. Peripherally he saw the old man’s head resting on his right shoulder. It was still a ways to his stop and he sat as calmly as he could. This stranger rested against him like a lover. A few of the flowers had begun to wilt, their life flowing into the hush of the train car. The man’s breath was close to his ear and soon his own breath followed, rising and falling in concert. He remained still as his anxiety began to ebb. He started to think about breakfast that day and recalled pushing the vase and hearing his wife’s chiding. That morning he had not looked at her nor at the vase, though he remembered the brief pleasing smoothness of the vase’s cool curving surface. Details sharpened as he sat: the coldness of the milk as he had poured it, the warmth of the coffee mug in his hand, the chill in the early morning air, the sudden eruption of her anger as she spoke, the scuffing of her receding footsteps, the quick feeling of loneliness before he had pushed it away.

The old man continued to sleep, so he sat motionless. His eyes fell upon the flowers, and he wondered how they would be received. He then observed his own empty hands as they rested on his lap.

As the train neared the next stop the conductor’s voice cut through the car’s relative quiet. The old man startled, sitting up with a look of panic. He noted the flowers and he breathed deeply. Gathering his energy he excused himself as the younger man stood to let him pass. When the man sat down he brushed off his right shoulder. On the seat next to him lay a few rose petals. He picked one up and felt its fragile velveteen softness between his fingers. He had never done this before and he tried to imagine if he had ever touched anything so delicate and richly beautiful.

Long ago he had touched his son’s infant cheek and it had felt this way. And, too, when he had first met his wife, her face was a blossoming flower beneath his fingers. He placed the petal in his upturned, cupped hand. Soon the petal would dry and whither. There was nothing he could do. His own hands and face had been marked by time. His son was now a man. The years had touched his wife as well. He began to release the flower petal but stopped. He recalled the rose dish his wife had at home. She cherished blossoms even in death. A deep sorrow began to stir within him. He closed his hand around the petal as sadness stood to meet him.

At the station he made his way through the crowds. He passed the usual shops. The smell of coffee hung in the air along with aromas of pizza and hamburgers. Wooden stalls and carts displayed produce, meat, fish, gifts, books, and clothes. At the flower stall he stopped. A man with a cap sat on a chair, half watching people hurry along. He had been doing this for decades. The scent of flowers potently filled the immediate space around the flower cart. As he stood still, people brushed by him, seeking refuge, food, family, companionship, sleep. He rooted himself against the tempest. How long had it been since he had stopped here to buy her flowers? His face grew warm as he calculated the answer. The empty blue vase rose up to face him, overpowering him with the silence inside its glass walls. He did not push it away. Instead he saw purples and pinks which would spread with the sunrise and darken with the sunset in the blue vase. For a moment he touched the velvet blossoms. Cradling the bouquet, he hurried home.