As October faded and decayed, November blossomed; the jacaranda tree exploded in fireworks of purple flowers amongst the green tree tops haggling and hunkering over the back fence.
The invasion of colour occurred at the same time they injected her with drugs to fight the cancer in her blood.
And the flowers began to fall, denuding the tree, forming a purple carpet on the backyard lawn; scattered randomly and suggesting they could be counted where they fell or numbered as the hairs on her head. The purple flowers faded, cut off from the tree, turned brown and became one with the earth.
As the last of the flowers fell, tiny green shoots pushed through, heralds of the turning season. And she waited.
A Fullness in Brevity - Adam Byatt 
This story was very nice I really enjoyed it!
Very nice I really enjoyed this story!
Nice! I like the comparison suggested of the seasons passing by and the new growth appearing, and her going through the treatment and waiting to see if a new beginning was there for her.
Btw I have a jacaranda tree in my front yard.
We have one in our backyard. Delightful. Love driving around this time of year and seeing the splodges of purple dotted throughout the green tree tops.
dammit Adam, you make me want to leave my pencil in the corpse of my reluctant musings. That was very good, and your experience shows through.
The changing of seasons often brings on a new lease of life.
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Just beautiful. Painterly and poetic all at the same time.
reminds us that we are decidedly deciduous rather than evergreen… 😦
Beautifully simply elegiac
Powerful. Iconic.
It made me think of how the fallen jacaranda flowers were treacherously slippery on the paved driveway of my friends years ago. Beautiful while on the tree yet reason to pause and contemplate where and how you stepped once they’d fallen. The brilliant periwinkle blue becoming a brown slush.
A stellar combination of imagery and real life tragedy. Incisive. Heart breaking. All combined with your trademark brevity of language.
My fingers itch to do a tiny nip and tuck, but as always in am in awe of how you can take the every day and transmute it into something timeless and heartachingly impactful.
Beautiful, Adam! And I’m going to offer some constructive criticism ;). I loved the flow of the piece until I got to the third paragraph; the first sentence seemed overly long, like it could be cut up into a few shorter sentences for more impact, as my mind wandered by the time I got to the end of the sentence. Apart from that I love your imagery and the way you’ve constructed this.
Thanks for the feedback, Stacey. I’ll have another look over it.