I have dozens of flowers, probably a little over a hundred now, all rotting away on my balcony.  After the first few weeks, I just got tired of dealing with them, a new bouquet at least every other afternoon.  They started to make me tired, exhausting just to look at, so I stuck the flowers outside; out of sight, out of mind.  I guess since I wouldn’t return John’s calls, e-mails, or dinner requests, he began to use flowers and gifts as a new way to invade my space.  Most of the adjoining cards still remain unopened even now, all in different stages of decay, lost words hopefully disappearing along with the dried petals, being blown away together by the wind.

I found it interesting that I’d never received flowers from John before.  Not once, not any, not until I’d asked to be left alone; then the flowers began.  The last bouquet came four months later on my birthday, along with a box filled with a blue plastic penis.  Hmmm, a penis mixed in with the final thrust of half a dozen roses; at first, the two together left me confused.  So I decided to read the card this time: “Happy Birthday, hope to see you again, never.  Gone to Japan.”  Well, for whatever it’s worth, I figured at least he’d finally said goodbye.  Though the message itself was vague, too vague; however, knowing John’s love for poor metaphors, I took the blue plastic penis to be his way of adding a personal touch to the traditional, ‘fuck you.’  Poor John, my guess is that if he’d had any inkling as to who would really be enjoying his gift, he’d certainly never have sent it. 

In fact, it caused a great deal of amusement, this blue plastic penis sent out of spite.  I’m sure he assumed I’d be horrified that anyone would have the audacity to send me such an item.  Though after his last “surprise,” he should have realized it would take a little more than that to truly out do himself.  So “a surprise,” that’s what he’d called it before.  He’d come up with this idea, one he’d pieced together while I was out of town.    Upon my return, John told me he had “a surprise” in the basement, “a surprise” he had to prepare himself for.  I was instructed to wait upstairs while he readied his “surprise,” and to wait for the signal to join him.  Fifteen minutes passed, and then I felt the floor shift.  John was apparently ready.

As I walked down the stairs, I could hear him chanting, “surprise, surprise,” as the stairs continued to shake.  Upon reaching the last step, I was just in time to watch as John sailed over his clothes and into a coffee table.  It seems the harness he’d hung from the ceiling, something he’d attempted to transform into a swing, didn’t hold.  Yet before it fell along with a chunk of the ceiling, he’d been able to build up enough momentum to send him self flying across the room, crashing down in all his naked glory.  I’m not sure whether he ever managed to fix his harness, nor did I discover its true intent, but I did hear he found someone to patch the ceiling, no questions asked.  So after watching John catapult himself in the nude, I figured there really wasn’t much left to say.