Writing Prompt-Selling Flowers

Every year in late September the Ohio City corporation shuts down a five block section of the city on West 25th for a street festival. And, on a combination of both dare and a need to get into the VIP section, Emily was there lugging a beat five gallon bucket filled with flowers. They were mostly thrashy little bouquets made of golden rod boughs and clumps of chicory. All yanked up from the lonely roadside on the Irish Bend on Carter road.

"Flowers for a dollar!"

"Hey, want some flowers for a dollar? They will look great in your hair!"

"Flowers for a dollar? I mean, I would love getting one so why not get her one?"

There were few takers. "Why aren't there wrapped up? Like the ones you buy at the gas station," sneered someone who took the time to stop and then quickly flit away.

Emily kept screaming for the sales while shuffling through the throng to the VIP area. Her plan was to snake through the crowd and then dump the bucket as she comes up to stainless steel barriers cordoning off the VIP area. She thought the sales cover would be funny and maybe sneak her a few dollars. She did not plan for how the inertia of the bucket would cut into her ankle. Her right bicep also burned so she needed to double palm the handle and lug it in zombie crawl side step.

By the Cambodian restaurant someone bought a pair. A mother for her two children who then proceeded to smack each other with the goldenrod boughs. The mother, frazzled, began to holler but Emily had skittered another few feet as she saw an opening in the claustrophobic sidewalks. Not just people but also arm thick bundles of water and power cables. Boxes filled with swag for each of the vendors. Water bottles for a dance studio. Erasers for a school. A carton of t-shirts someone would throw into the crowd.

A block away from the VIP area Emily saw a pair of police officers standing by a vinyl event tent. Here she dropped the bucket sending the water and now soaked boughs into the overflowing gutter, saturated by the melting ice of a beer tent in the VIP section. She did grab one bouquet and held it together in her hands as she walked up to the rope of the VIP section. The police were not so much guarding it as just idling. The only guard was someone in a black t shirt and jeans. A thin young man with protruding elbows and a water bottle.

Emily made eye contact but didn't smile. She didn't know if this phased the guard (a loose term) but she walked right through bothered by the man she thought would ask for the lighting bolt hand stamp that indicated VIPs. Or by the police asking for a vendors license. For the moment she appreciated the edge of privilege she had albeit the power to use it to break into the open air VIP section of a family street festival was less than thrilling.