I met a woman once in the highlands of a forgotten province. She kept a single red lotus in a glass vase on a windowsill that faced east. The valley below was a war zone of progress—cranes eating the skyline, highways slicing through rice paddies.
Watching the petals slice through the air, one forgets they were ever waterlogged. The edges, sharp as calligraphy, cut the humidity. They do not flap like a bird’s clumsy wing; they unfurl with the mechanical precision of a silk fan snapping open. Each rotation of the flower catches the thermals not of heat, but of aspiration.
Now, imagine that lotus not resting placidly on the water’s surface, but soaring . crimson lotus soaring
Because the soaring was never the destination. The soaring was the proof of life.
And it will remember how to fly.
And in the three seconds I glanced away to check my phone, I swore I saw it hover. Just a millimeter above the rim of the vase. A tremor of levitation. The crimson lotus, testing the drag of the earthly tether.
I watched. The stem, usually limp and docile, stood rigid as rebar. The flower seemed to lean out of the window, tilting toward the gray smog. I met a woman once in the highlands of a forgotten province
As the sun sets behind the highlands, the flower settles back into the vase. The woman closes the window. For a moment, the room is just a room again.