There is a small girl sitting on a shore. A shore of which no one knows, no one goes. There are willows whispering to each other and to their mother – asking questions. They have seen the girl for the last three-hundred days, and more than half of a hundred days more. Today she comes not with one flower, but three.

The small girl’s eyes – overpowering, nearly black – gaze up at the willows, as they do every day. A tear rolls down her cheek, and she turns away. She angrily wipes them from her face. Flowers in hand, she goes up on her knees and gazes at her reflection in the water. It is blurred and distorted and not pleasing to her. Sighing, the girl sits down again.

Opening her hand, she sees she has crushed the flowers. Another tear falls from her eyes, and another, because the flowers are no longer beautiful. She throws them in the water, and throws herself to the ground. The flowers were crushed, her flowers were crushed.

The willows wait for the small girl to blow the flowers across the lake, as she did every day. Her head does not lift from the earth though; they see only a mass of limp yellow curls. Twisting their branches, the willows conjure up a weak wind. When the girl looks up, the flowers are by the opposite shore. She smiles.

There is a man leaning on a distant tree. This goes on too frequently for him to feel pain usually, but today is a special day. He looks to the shore, and can hardly look away.

The small girl runs towards him, palms open, suddenly smiling. She takes his leg and squeezes, though it will not ever be the same with only one. “Mother is on the other side of the lake,” the man says.

“What will Mother give me in return for all of the flowers I have given her?” The girl does not want much.

“I think she already has given you enough,” the man puts his hand on the girl’s gentle curls, running it down to her chin.

“What had she given me?” she says, strangely wanting to fight back. “She has taken too much from us.”

The man does not answer. He never answers her questions. The small girl doesn’t understand. She turns away.

The willows breathe, they smell. They breathe in life, the smell of life, and then let it out again. Giving life back to whoever had taken it, as they watch the man turn and walk away. The small girl looks at the lake for a long time. The willows watch her walk back into the forest, head still turned to the water, until she disappears. They wonder if she will come again tomorrow, or if now she has given all that she can.