Do You Know How the Lotus Flower Blooms? by T.H. Young
3400 words, ~17 minutes reading time
Issue 6 (Fall 2024)
Near the end of your life, your mother asked you if it was worth it — which was the closest she had ever been to thinking of your happiness. But you wouldn’t allow her to bury her guilt with your body. So instead, you told her your noose was itchy.
“Was it worth it, child?” she asked again.
You did not answer.
The executioner was declaring your crimes against the celestial kingdom when she grabbed your arm and forced you to look at her. But your eyes wandered to the lush rows of crops and the plump pigs in the barn nearby. The flowers in the temple’s garden turned to the sun behind you, a witness to your final stand. Afar, a mandarin tree stood tall, blooming.
Was it worth it?
Mother was hauled off the stage with a cry. Your chapped lips curved into a smile as the executioner outlined your death sentence. You delivered prayers, you did not make them. But you found yourself wishing for mandarins on your altar when the ground opened beneath you.
It was believed by the elders that being born under the star of a flower portends longevity and a future destined for greatness. But when the goddess of spring birthed you, a lunar eclipse darkened the skies and what should have been a life destined for godhood became one marred with grief.
You learnt early on to not ask for much. Garnering attention was forbidden; speaking was a death wish. So you went on to live idly; an aimless leaf.
You were a child when your mother descended from the celestial kingdom to visit the earthly realm and observe the temple they were building in her name. Unable to comprehend her conversations with the monk, you grew bored and decided to wade into my river where your sisters were playing. When they laughed, sunlight danced on the water and flowers fluttered at the twinkling sound. The fates watched over them while you stood by the edge of the river, fingernails sinking into the wet mud as you steadied yourself against the current.
The sharp pebbles scratched your feet as you stalked toward them, craning your neck to keep your head above water. If you reached them before mother noticed, maybe then they’d play with you. Maybe then they’d accept you. But something opened below. An uneven ground; a slipped rock. The current hooked your leg and dragged you under. The rushing water drowned your scream.
But I heard you, felt your thrashing fear, and then your silent acceptance.
I twisted through you like wind, nimble like dance ribbons. Darkness spotted your vision as my tide guided you into the sacred lake. You crashed into the herd of lotus and through the water. Seeing light, your feet pumped your body and you broke from the water in a desperate inhale.
I was sitting at the bottom of the orchid tree when you spotted me.
I looked up from my book, unfazed.
“Do you have a name?” I asked.
You shook your head, still gasping for air.
I smiled. “Then your name will be Sen,” I told you. “For you were born under the star of the lotus.”
“Sen,” you repeated slowly.
Your name was my first gift to you — and the first thing that truly belonged to you.
You returned to my lake the following week. You followed the river and somehow tracked through the unmarked path in the forest before emerging from the berry bushes. I was napping when you peered over me, wet hair dripping onto my face. Each droplet cracked at my dark, dreamless state until it fractured completely, and I was blinking my eyes open to meet your curious gaze.
“Hello,” you said.
Jerking up, I asked, “How did you find me?”
“I followed them,” you told me, pointing past my shoulder.
I turned slightly to find fireflies hovering behind me. At my glare, they fluttered away. I heard a splash and looked too late when you dove into the lake in an attempt to catch a frog.
I frowned when you pulled on one of my lotuses and asked, loudly, “What is this?”
“That’s a lotus,” I said, standing up.
You pointed to the tree behind me. “And that?”
“An orchid tree.”
“And that?”
“Tulips.”
“And that?”
“Mandarins.”
Your finger landed on me. “And you?”
I paused.
“Mai,” I said slowly. “I am the guardian of this lake.” Pushing up my sleeves, I bent over and extended a hand to you. “Now come on, you’re going to catch a cold.”
I sent you back home that evening, and you returned the next day under the pretence that you needed to learn about my garden and my lake.
“As the daughter of the spring goddess,” you recited to me the first line all children of gods memorized. “I must learn the way of the earth.”
But even with all the flowers named and the herbs explained, you still returned to my lake. Sometimes with pastries; sometimes in tears. But every time, without fail, the fireflies led you back to me.
And every time, I was here, waiting.
In one of our early lessons, I asked you if you knew how the lotus flower bloomed.
“From the mud!” you declared, giddy.
“They rise,” I corrected. Taking your hand, I guided you to the edge of the lake and pointed to the blossoming whites. “They sleep underwater and when dawn breaks the sky, they ascend from the dark of water.”
“Ascend…?” you tested the word in your mouth.
“Ascend,” I said. “Like gods.”
You repeated, “Like gods.”
Do you still remember what I taught you?
When you came of age, your mother sent you to the temple they’d built for her to help deliver the prayers of the townspeople. On your first day as a priestess in the earthly realm, you were to abstain from indulging. It wasn’t as much of a ritual as it was a final punishment. Because here, your mother can no longer reach you.
As you kneeled below a statue of your mother, you heard a chorus of drums. Laughter curved around the pillars and braided through the empty halls.
Curiosity urged you upward; breaking your abstinence, you ventured out of the temple and followed the rhythm into town. You weaved through the bustling market and admired the lanterns strung from the buildings. Vendors shouted their best prices for flower-shaped pastries, the nutty aroma making you drool. But the rhythm of life tugged you away from the snack stands and toward the growing crowd in town square.
Your eyes landed on a dancing dragon. Its fiery scales sparkled beneath the glowing lanterns as it leapt into the air. Your heart pounded to the beat of the drums, completely enamoured. You tried to move closer, to get a better look, but you tripped and careened forward. A hand shot out from the dragon’s mouth and steadied you. Its bells twinkled and under the shield of its wide mouth, you came face to face with the mortal Dragon Boy.
The dancer behind him hissed, “Hey! What are you doing?”
The firecrackers nearby exploded, and his thoughts rang in your ears like a prayer. No one called you beautiful in a very long time. Heat bloomed on your cheeks like an orchid. He let go of your arm and resumed the performance.
Afterwards, the Dragon Boy asked for your name, and you gave it to him.
He tested the word in his mouth as he wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“Sen,” he repeated, tentatively. “Like the lotus.”
You beamed, and he finally understood why flowers turn in search for the sun.
You visited me less then. The sacred lake returned to being mine rather than ours, but I didn’t mind. I was grateful you had someone closer to your age to confide in. As I watched you rush from our lunches and back to the temple, a warmth unfolded in my chest. You were once a seedling rooted in the dark, and I was watching yet another lotus bloom.
One day, the Boy told you that his mother was like a god to him, but he lost faith when she left him to die that day. He was barely ten when an unforgiving winter chased her out of town. His father believed in her return, even as the cold ebbed at his fingers and hunger swallowed him whole. No one answered the Boy’s desperate pleas then, and he didn’t expect them to answer now. Yet every night he still prayed to the sleeping gods who couldn’t save his father.
You knew because you heard them.
Every night, you propped up from your cot and opened the only window in your room. As you rested your head on the ledge, the prayers came to you in chorus. A mother hoping for her child’s recovery. The farmer next door willing for a successful harvest. A girl wishing for unconditional love. Within the melody, you heard his voice, smooth like flint, as he prayed for a day’s meal — and the perfect place to drown.
If you are real, you will grant me such, he said.
When morning came, you sent off the prayers. But you never delivered his. Instead, you gathered whatever offerings left in the temple and brought it to his home. The two of you would sit on the bench in front of his house and split mandarins until the moon rose. As the stars wake from their slumber, the both of you would lean back and admire the vastness of the world. Occasionally, your pinkies would meet, and like the sweet scent of mandarins, the warmth of his touch would linger long after you leave.
One rainy afternoon, when you two snuck behind the temple, you asked him if he believed in the gods.
He responded in that low voice of his, “I believe in you.”
And that was how he came to seek refuge at your altar, long before it became yours.
Your first offering was from a married couple three houses down from the temple. It was a small branch of mandarins placed on hand-painted china. You remembered watching your sisters receive the sweet fruits on their altars, and wondered when it would be your turn. You could only stare as the wife gently slid the plate towards you with a soft smile. You waited for the joke; for the sneers you were often subjected to in the celestial kingdom. But none came.
The mandarins’ smooth skin glistened under the summer sun, and you couldn’t help but smile at the small lotuses painted around the plate. The couple had bought the fruits from the market a town over. They didn’t want anything in return. It was a gift because you reminded them of their daughter long since passed.
“From disease,” the woman said quietly when she saw your questioning gaze.
But you already knew. You were only curious about the rhythm of life coming from the woman’s swollen belly; a weak, but consistent drum. A lifeline pulled taught and susceptible to snapping.
Carefully, you peeled a mandarin and offered it to her.
“Oh no, I can’t —”
“Take it. Please,” you said. “For the baby.”
After a moment, she gave in and smiled. Then the three of you shared the honeyed mandarins in silence.
Before the couple left the temple, you gathered the bouquet of flowers you had picked from our garden and handed it to the husband. “Put this on the offering table tonight,” you instructed. “Leave the rest to me.”
The next morning, you delivered the couple’s prayer for a successful harvest to your mother. She had a weakness for pretty things: objects, nature, mortals. You made sure to have the message delivered by her favourite–a white dove.
But even then, nothing grew from the couple’s farm, and their prayers remained unanswered. Having waited long enough, you took matters into your own hands. I had barely risen from my sleep when you burst through the bushes one morning and into the garden. You sunk two silver buckets into the sacred lake and hauled them out.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“My mother,” you said through gritted teeth as you dragged the buckets of water back to town. You planted a mandarin seed from the couple’s offering in their farm and used the lake water to tend to the plants. You continued to do this every day for weeks on end.
In less than a month, a sapling grew from the couple’s desolate garden. The sprout would grow into a mandarin tree — strong and healthy, like their future child.
Soon enough, the townspeople began to trickle into the temple for your help. They asked you for a cure to their dying crops; for help with their businesses; for health and longevity. You gave them water from the sacred lake to drink and feed their crops. You gifted them flowers from the garden for their tea to treat sickness. You helped at their stands and conjured ways to attract more customers.
You became the answer to their prayers. In some ways, you became their god.
“Why are there less prayers?” your mother asked at your annual dinner in the celestial kingdom.
You shrugged, taking small bites from the broiled fish.
Her gaze was a knife, cutting through your unusually detached facade. She considered you once more before placing her chopsticks down with a metallic clatter. “Speak, child.”
“The townspeople seem to be making it through the winter without us,” you said, refusing to meet her gaze. “Their crops have been prepared for spring, and their businesses are flourishing.”
“Without us?” she asked.
“Maybe they don’t need you any—” you didn’t get to finish the sentence. Your mother struck you across the face. Suddenly, you were five again, standing in her bedroom, and learning first hand that the goddess of spring was capable of harm as much as she was capable of life.
Finally, you looked at your mother and noticed the glare behind her eyes. You once pestered her until she looked at you like this; you had revelled in her attention, even if the spark in her gaze was an angry flame rather than the soft glow of love. Fire was fire and her attention kept you warm either way.
But now, her gaze only burnt you.
You pressed a cold hand on your cheek.
“Do not speak such nonsense,” she hissed. “Do you know what happens to gods when no one believes in them anymore?”
You didn’t respond, and you refused to cry. Instead, you stood up and excused yourself. No one stopped you from leaving. No one asked you to stay. As you took the long route back to the earthly realm, you found yourself thinking of lotus flowers and how they all must descend at one point.
The next day, you spent a particularly gruelling afternoon at the market. With many townspeople hoping to sell enough to make it past winter, you spent the hours hopping from one vendor to another. Your voice had gone hoarse from speaking and your body ached from lifting the crates of produce. But still, you stayed at the market until the crisp night air bit at your cheeks and the first specks of snow fluttered from the sky.
Later that night, as you tidied the temple courtyard, the Dragon Boy — now Man — walked up the steps and through the creaking entrance. You turned to find his bemused smile.
“I’ve never seen them so happy,” he said, gesturing to the town below. A light melody sailed across town square as everyone celebrated the first snow. “They see you as their god.”
You laughed. “My mother is a god. I am not.”
“You are a god to me.”
You stared at him as he handed you an orchid, as men here do when faced with the prospect of marriage. He loved like children did, unconditional to a fault. You had dreamt of an unwavering dedication since you were a little girl, but now that it was at arm’s length, you flinched as though burnt. His eyes fell at your hesitation.
You followed the fireflies and came to me that night in tears.
Your mother’s absence splintered you; a broken cup that could no longer hold water. A body that could no longer accept love.
As you cried into my lap, I asked, “Do you remember what I told you about the lotus flower?”
You hiccuped and blew out a breath. This was not the first time we’ve had this conversation.
“They rise,” you croaked.
“From where?”
“The mud?”
I tsked. “From the dark.”
You shot up, grass sticking to your hair. “It’s the same thing!”
“But it’s not. A lotus rises from the dark… despite the mud, despite the dark. Despite everything.” I smoothed out your hair. “You will realize this soon enough.”
But you never had the chance to realize this. You never had the chance to accept the Dragon Boy’s proposal, and I never had the chance to gift you this lake, this garden, as my final gift.
Because your mother had sent someone to follow you home that night. Soon enough, the celestial kingdom discovered that you had answered the townspeople’s prayers despite not being a goddess yourself. And for such defiance of the heavenly order, you were detained for treason.
At the end of your life, your mother insisted on staying with you until your body was burnt. She didn’t trust men so much as she didn’t trust herself to admit what she had done.
As the townspeople prepared the pyre, a small child approached the stage where your body laid. Your mother nearly yanked the poor girl by the collar but faltered when she saw her pull a small, orange fruit from her pocket. She placed it by your side. The child’s eyes flitted to your mother, lips wobbling at her cutting glare before she skittered away to her sobbing parents.
As your mother sat and watched your crumpled body on stage, she asked you if it was worth it.
She found her answer in the bruised mandarin.
When they burned your body, I sent fireflies to the flickering pyre. It was late and it was dark and you may not see the path clearly. You may get lost on your way back. But when the fireflies returned, you were not trailing behind them.
I knew you would return.
I believed you would return.
A lotus must ascend from the underworld, and you, my child, must rise from death.
You were the closest I had to raising my own kin. A child was a part of their mother as much as she was to them. If you did not return, then it meant I had lost a piece of myself — and it was an outcome I refused to face.
So I asked you again, Sen: do you remember how the lotus flower blooms?
At the end of her life, your mother asked who will be left to believe in you. But you were no longer there to answer her.
At the start of a new day, there is no mother, no daughter, only a makeshift altar sitting beside a sacred lake. Rain spills through the trees and into a chipped offering cup.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The Man kneels down; a dagger to his hands. A middle-aged couple places a branch of mandarins on hand-painted china. I light incense, then flatten my palms together. A prayer long forgotten is finally spoken, and you breathe.
The incense flickers, sways, and dies, just as new life stretches into you. An unconditional love lifts you from the grave as your soul laps up the warm blood that pools from the Man’s two wrists. He looks up to his god, his beloved.
You, almost god, scream. Your spirit drums against the earth until it splinters. Light hurtles from the ground up and shatters the morning dark. You see me now; you reach for my hand. But I am no longer here. This is your lake now, these are your plants. And one day, the fireflies will bring me back to you. Maybe as your mother, maybe as your child, but always as your devout believer.
You’ve dreamt of unconditional love since you were a little girl. Will you accept it now? As your lover bares his blood, and I my soul, will you accept it?
You ascend from the lake a guardian, a god.
A child pulls from the current.
A lotus blooms from the dark.
A girl breaks from the water.