Imagine Yourself a Flower

Chapter One of Imagine It

Imagination is more important than knowledge. -Albert Einstein

I sat stiffly in the semi-circle that our teacher had corralled us into. Fresh tears were being wiped from everyone’s eyes as the girl beside me finished reading her heart felt story. I had cried myself closer to the middle but was able to gain control of myself before she had finished.

“That was touching Emilia,” the teacher smiled trying to wipe away the tears that had formulated at her eyes as well, “Are you ready Deja?” I grew even stiffer as I gazed down at the paper I had written. I nodded slowly, trying to control the shaking of my hands to no prevail.

“My story is called The Connection Between Life and Math.” I felt my heart curl up at the sound of groans and sighs from my peers.

“Deja this is a creative writing assignment, each time we have these you give us a research paper.”

“But it includes my opinion,” I tried to counter though I only got more stares as I argued my unsuccessful point.

“At least her papers strike some kind of emotion in us,” a girl named Dixie commented, “it causes us to cry and feel an extreme amount of boredom which might lead to death.” The class erupted in laughter as her friends nudged her and others just agreed. I shrunk in my chair as my cheeks grew an abnormal red and my body shook even more than before.

“Deja for the sake of the class and you, we will pass over you, I’ll read your paper on my own time.” I doubted this she would probably just put some comment saying ‘informative’ and put that crimson check on it. I nodded as I laid my head down and closed my eyes as the person beside me began to read their paper. I don’t know why I respond like this as I should be used to this by now. Every two weeks we had these Creative Writing Periods where we write a story on anything and then, might I add for a grade, read them to the class.

I hated highschool. I hated everything about it. I also hated middle school and elementary school, especially elementary school. I was an intellectual girl. I cared about my grades and at some moments would pull all-nighters just to study for a test. I was in four AP classes and passing all of them. Yet I hated highschool because teachers here expected you to have an in depth imagination. They didn’t come out and say it but if you paid attention to their assignments almost all of them required it, only math was exempt from this.

Could you imagine being an outcast just because of this? I thought people thought I was weird because of how smart I tried to come off to hide the fact that I had no creativeness. I wasn’t nicknamed any special name or bullied repeatedly in the hallway. The worse people did to me was laugh or pressure me into helping them cheat. I was normally ignored and to some I did not exist.

“That was exceptionally well,” the teacher replied as the girl beside me brought her story to an end. I rolled my eyes as I kept my head down and the class began to make comments on her wonderfully written short story.

I hate to agree, as it would then seem that I possessed something downgraded, but Einstein, like always, is right. Imagination is more important than knowledge.

-Love DejaY

 

“Look at my picture momma!” Avalon shouted running into the kitchen at jet speed, right into her mother’s arms. Deja looked up from her bowl of soup before drifting her gaze back down slowly, another incredible picture no doubt.

“When did you do this?” the mother asked politely, hey eyes growing wide at the picture before her.

“At school! We were supposed to draw the first thing that came to our mind.” Deja again looked up now suspicious of exactly what she drew to make her mother make such an expression. She stood up and took her bowl to the sink where she was able to get an excellent view. The paper was decorated with a wide array of colors and glitter. In the middle of the beautiful piece was what looked like a flower, the flower had been crying which was obvious with the dark splotches dropping and the puddle of crystal blue at its stem. There were no flowers nearby this lone flower as it continued to cry. Nothing else stood out more than this flower besides the sun which sat at the top middle of the page, above the depressed flower. The sun was covered in golden and yellow glitter, illuminating the otherwise dull piece of paper.

“What happened to the flower? Why is he sad?” mother asked stealing a seat allowing herself to be on the same level as Avalon.

“The flower is lonely and has no friends so he started crying. The sun saw him crying and felt bad for him so he moved so he would be above him and started to dry up his tears. Letting the flower know that he has a friend, a friend that would be there when he was awake but not when he was sleep.” The kitchen went quiet as both viewers absorbed the new information. The mother couldn’t help but think of the story and viewing the picture, seeing it all play out in her head, causing her heart to ache with joy and sadness for the flower and her child. Deja’s heart also ached but only because try as she might she would’ve never thought that the picture represented this. When she had first saw the picture the only thought that had entered her mind was that it had a lot of colors on it.

“It’s a beautiful picture Avalon, what made you draw it?”

“A girl in my class has no friends.”

“You’re so sweet darling,” their mother smiled embracing her daughter and trying to suppress a laugh, “so how was your day Deja?”

“Exceptionally long.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I would like to go to bed and like every other night dream of math problems. And you know what the best part is? The problems are solvable!” Avalon and her mother looked at each other and then at a crazy smiling Deja.

“What does that mean?”

“Exactly!” With that Deja stomped out of the kitchen trying to hide the disappointment in her body language, yet doing a horrible job of fulfilling that. Not fully understanding what just happened Avalon turned and skipped to her room merrily. She was excited to be home where she could finally play with her friends. She ran to her dresser pulling one of her favorite jackets off the hanger and quickly threw it on. After making sure everything was as it should be she ran to the window and with one lunge and jump, was running away from the house and into the nearby woods.

YYY

Deja stood staring at the ceiling unable to drift into the sleep she so desperately wanted to go into. Every day was worse than the one before, she felt more like an outcast with her peers and family. Fresh tears slowly streamed down her face as memories of her day replayed in her mind. Deja felt like that flower her sister had drawn; only she had no sun to make things a little brighter for her. Nobody cared or noticed her various emotions or wondered why she was so deafly quiet, no they didn’t even know she existed. Deja had accepted this reality for the better yet that didn’t mean she had to love it. Deja cried herself to sleep that night, crying even more as a math equation from the day appeared into her mind.

 

Earlier that Morning . . .

                “Deja can you please come here?” the reading teacher asked after most of the kids had vacated the class. Deja glumly approached her desk, keeping eye contact with the various spots on the tiled floor.

                “Yes ma’am?”

                “What is going on? Ever since we started this Creative Writing Project you’ve been giving us nothing but research papers. At first I thought it was just something you wanted to stress but now it looks like a problem. Is that the most creative thing you can come up with?” Deja thought about this not wanting to let out her deepest secret though it was quite obvious, she had no creativity.

                “I guess you can say that . . .”

                “Deja I can’t keep passing you with these. The project calls for creative papers not research and though you are a very smart girl I’m not going to keep failing some of these kids that are trying but giving you passes.”

                “I can’t,” Deja whispered under her breath, trying to hold back her sobs.

                “Can’t what dear?”

                “Write like that.”

                “Deja I don’t care if you write one of the least emotional and dull stories ever as long as it’s something you imagined and came up with, I’ll be okay.” There goes that word again, that cursed word. Deja nodded readjusting her book bag on her shoulder before walking out of the class.

 

 

A choking sob broke the silent neighborhood, followed by even more. Avalon fell into her room breathing heavily and crying her heart out. Her eyes were puffy and red with even more tears making their way out of her eyes. She slowly crawled to her bed, her feet aching from all the running it had done, a slight bruise forming on her leg from the window. Avalon covered her face with the pillow trying to cease her crying yet finding it quite impossible. A voice spread throughout the house causing all to stir yet only Avalon truly heard it and recognized it.

“Help.”