In Bloom

Original illustration by Anne Le Guern

When Wiktor dumps the first shovelful, the dirt falls on Michał’s stomach. Then more dirt flies, which reminds Michał of both his vacation at the seaside — he tossed sand on his dad, who was dazed by the beer and the bill for fried cod — and all the funerals he’s seen in his life.

“This is the Earth Trial, the simulation of a mass grave,” Wiktor says. “You are supposed to feel like grains planted in the soil: small and bland.”

Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground dies, itself remaineth alone. But if it dies, it bringeth forth much fruit, Michał thinks.

Donut, Klotz, and Mietas have already been buried. That leaves him and Trufer, who, as usual, hesitates.

“You already live like a corpse, Pumpkin. What’s the harm?” Wiktor asks.

Michał’s entire body disappears into the ground and Wiktor makes sure that the snorkel and goggles sit right, then carefully covers Michal’s face.

“Rest in peace for a bit, Father.”

It’s getting quite dark.

First came the itch, fiendish. When the faithful weren’t looking, Michał grinded discreetly against the altar, anxious. He took allergy medication and calcium, coated himself with a thick layer of the anti-fungal clotrimazole, and put on cotton underwear. He woke up in the middle of the night and scratched like crazy, then drifted off again. He dreamt that the Jesus statue in front of his church was gliding down the yellow, tongue-like slide at the Warszawianka water park. The momentum of the water ripped off Jesus’s barely-there swim trunks, which immediately sank to the bottom. As Jesus dove after them, Michał got a glimpse of his concrete buttocks flashing between two waves of blue water.

He was shattered by the godlessness of this dream. On the bed sheets he found traces of blood from his shredded crotch. Outside the window, March at its nastiest was hurling snow. Now Michał could actually see the statue of Jesus, standing with his back to him, facing the trams gliding back and forth along ul. Puławska.

The itching was just the beginning. Within hours, his groin turned green, then painlessly burst open and bloomed into a large turquoise-pink flower, sort of resembling an orchid. Each petal shimmered with fresh color, supple and shiny.

Once the flower emerged, the itch subsided.

A dirt’s-eye view changes a lot.   Michał is on the Quest of the Flowered Man because he desperately wants to get rid of an ailment, but does that mean anything