Thor woke from a deep sleep. What a weird dream, he mused, glancing at his hand in the early morn, startled by the black and blue abrasion beginning to heal. What nocturnal element had punctured his palm? Against the wall, he pushed a suspicious cabinet edge poking into his bathroom route. That must be it, he thought.
Days and nights passed without incident, to Thor's relief. Blending a routine of class, study, and Museum, he weighed it a bonus when Stafford requested his feedback on the upcoming and subsequent exhibits. The director relished the consults. Thor's incisive input became standard to incorporate before a show unveiled.
Svetana Mopanise was pruning potted plants in the antechamber fronting the director's office when she saw Thor patiently waiting in a chair.
"Hello, Thor. I'll tell him you're here."
Before she could act, Stafford's voice roared through the open portal, "Come in, Thor."
Svetana smiled at the boy, who reciprocated the gesture in passing.
"Grab a seat. I'm almost finished," Stafford spouted. Occupying an antiquated suede chair, he was scribbling notes in a tablet journal set atop a royal oak desk.
Thor sank into a matching chair facing the writing man. His eagle eyes swept the intoxicating library brimming with book after book on shelf after shelf. This lavish labyrinth contained conventional cloth-covered, rich leathered, sturdy buckram-bound, no-frills paperback, emaciated to voluminous, anemically undersized to the ostentatiously oversized stacked horizontally rather than vertically to suit the confining space. Stuffed amidst the collection were fossils and artifacts from treks round the globe. Scattered on the walls were pictures of places probed by Stafford. A regulation to the room was not readily apparent. Thor's sight danced the surface of mysterious objects from the marvelous maze eager to be explored, their secrets to be unraveled.
Notes completed, the inscriber came to a standstill.
Stafford regarded the reserved boy, studying his face as he spoke. "You have a talent. Your outlook upscales the exhibits."
"Thank you, sir. I enjoy contributing," Thor replied politely.
"Likewise. I enjoy proposals of mutual merit. Would a part-time job suit you?"
"You're joking."
"Just the opposite. Your duties would be commensurate with your performance to date, plus salary retroactive to your Grand Canyon preview."
"Is that possible?"
"Why not? You've earned it. I've already spoken with Theogen at the Institute."
"You have?"
"Unlike other visitors, you're here virtually daily, swift to assist. He should know the breadth of your embellishments."
"What did he say?"
"He was delighted. My question is, what do you say?"
"I accept. Definitely."
"Hang on. Don't jump that premature gun. Before you agree, we need to discuss the terms of your salary. I'm open to negotiation. There's wiggle room on the amount," he smiled.
Thor was pensive. "No need. That would spoil it. I'm sure your terms are fair."
"Commendable endorsement, Thor. Professionally handled. Come tomorrow after school, and we'll set up a schedule."
Stafford rose from his chair and held out his hefty, gnarled hand. Thor stood to shake it.
"Thank you, sir."
Thor pranced on clouds back to the Institute. The predominant sector of his life dedicated to the Museum was a cogent testament to his affinity with nature. Learning and observing phenomena charmed him. Offering advice when sought by Stafford elated him, but he hadn't conceived it would lead to his first job – at the Museum! He was an official employee of the place he ardently savored. A steady course of action commenced. He attended classes, worked zealously under Stafford late afternoons, centered on homework evenings, staying out of trouble at the orphanage, asking no questions, gaining no attention.
It began as a whim. Thor favored gardens and the native symphony of humming insect dwellers in concert with bird soloists. Hence, his wake one morning with a fantasy was explainable. Noooo! He pounced on his mind. This won't do. Absolutely not. A seed was rooting inside him. This will get me into trouble, he reckoned. I can't act. Still he made an appointment to speak with Theogen.
The headmaster was pleased with Thor's progress. To land a Museum post was deemed a coup in enviable circles of vying organizations. Theogen predicted an exciting career for this sweet-tempered boy who deserved better than he'd received so far in his short life. When Thor requested a conference, Theogen manipulated his hectic schedule to accommodate him. He planned to discuss Thor's future at the prestigious Museum, but that was not on the youth's agenda, who at present was expounding the virtues of his idea.
"My garden relies on your backing and Mr. Klingshire's, but I won't run it by him if you're not on board."
Theogen disguised his surprise at Thor's obsession to fashion a garden complementing the eccentric design of the Institute. This was not the discourse he had anticipated. No one cared about the unkempt fallow field situated inside the Institute jogging course. He blinked his eyes in disbelief at Thor's request.
"Gardening? How? When? Your employment sandwiched between extensive studies and an exotic pet, that's a crammed plate, don't you think?"
Thor listened, but Theogen distinguished his flinch while concluding, "Besides, we haven't the finances to maintain a garden or retain a gardener. We're strapped as it is for help."
Negation soaked the air. A critical door was about to slam. The compulsion to create an outdoor sanctuary where he could escape at any time, day or night, grasped hold of Thor and would not let go. The timid teen turned animated, jamming his foot into the slamming door to ram it open.
"Give me a chance, sir. I promise I'll manage. It's vital to me and would benefit the residents.
Although Thor was set on an innocuous mission, Theogen was reticent. Would the boy cope or be encumbered? Breaching the headmaster's musings, Thor wagered a supplement to reinforce his lobby.
"There's no risk. If you don't approve my creation, I'll destroy it."
Theogen caved. "There's no call for that. I wouldn't demand destruction. I was concerned you'd be fettered."
"I can juggle it. Honest. I won't be fettered."
"I won't be a hindrance. If you yearn to that degree, you have my blessing."
Thor arose, euphoric. "Thank you, sir."
He bounded from the office before the Museum could be cited. Theogen grinned, remembering dreams of his youth and the exuberance to achieve them. He strove to bestow those in his custody the same opportunities. Thor was aglow. Theogen was satisfied.
Flanking him in a corridor of the Museum, Thor cornered his boss the identical afternoon.
"Mr. Klingshire, may I glean clippings from the plants displayed here? They might germinate at the Institute."
"Versed in rooting, are you?"
"Hardly, but I'll tackle it."
Stafford reflected. "Pick what you want. I'll teach you the rudiments."
Leaping two hurdles, Thor was ecstatic. To model a garden of harmony after the architecture of symmetry, entailed flora to sprout as he visualized. Resolute, relentless, and reverent, he plotted to plow precision plantings.
* * *
Kyle Balthazan was akin to a cat. He excelled at landing on his feet, however tossed, except he did not have nine lives, but a single ordained to be brief. Diagnosed with the incurable hereditary disease that had killed his brother, his parents abandoned Kyle to the Institute. Cognizant he would undergo the fate of his departed brother, Kyle had zero tolerance for self-pity or that of others. Why bother dwelling on a dilemma beyond his control? He kept his condition a secret and beseeched Theogen, who was fully-informed, to honor his wishes.
Kyle circuited the Institute track daily. An exercise vigilante, the voracious eater stayed fit, lean, and trim, frequently trotting morning and evening to increase his vigor. His peripheral vision incorporated the scrubby center growth amid sparse presiding trees. Uncommon shoots in their tender infancy springing from the weeds detoured his jaunt. An undefined metamorphosis emerged from freshly-tilled, fertilized dirt. The burgeoning cultivation was refreshing to his racing regimen. Curious Kyle commented to friends. Those who hadn't noticed, made it their business to check out the novelty. Fascination walks hand in hand with mystery. Henceforth, the disregarded nuclear shambles drew widespread attention.
Anonymous plus autonomous were project fundamentals requested by Thor to Theogen. Asked by many who was the mastermind, Theogen was vague, his face of fidelity not disclosing Thor's identity. Digging without distraction to salvage unearthed worms, Thor crafted a glamorous garden, calibrated in resplendence by a labor of love.
Thor was partial to roses. His discriminant criterion to showcase diversity was strict – consummate pageantry and extravagant scent with a singular exception. Unique shades or traits could substitute for scant aroma, but no equivalence was tolerable for a blue rose, pivotal to his critical scheme. Therein lay an insurmountable hurdle. No true blue rose grew on the globe.
The far-fetched notion of blue roses enamored Thor, but he was clueless what to do until he had a dream. Along a promenade prior to dawn, Thor wandered, watching the rising sun streak white across a hedge of blue roses. He stared, struck by the shift of blue to white from the sunlight.
Waking from his slumber, Thor idled in bed, pondering the dream's significance the remainder of the night. If the sun could tweak light from blue to white, could he tweak light to create blue roses from white? Didn't color boil down to a matter of perception? He recalled toying with prisms as a child after sighting a rare rainbow, tinkering to duplicate the refraction of light into its spectral colors. If dangling facets split white to mimic a rainbow, could he bridle blue to reflect the illusion of a blue rose?
Daybreak found Thor in the garden. The targeted white roses, doused by multidirectional illumination, required transplanting to test his hypothesis. He conducted a suitable search, spotting a nestled niche where sun rays filtered through foliage from one location. Adequate was the sun to ensure rose growth, but streamlined to allow alteration of its beams as it tracked the sky.
The orphanage was fast asleep when Thor sneaked into the garden with his bag of hand-wrought prisms. Circling his selected roses, he aligned the crystals in angles he had laboriously traced across the sky for days. Awaiting the dark horizon to brighten, he paced the area nervously. The swirling clouds gave way to the sun, which hit Thor's filters in a vengeance, splintering light into a circus of dazzling color without peace, without harmony, without blue roses. He deduced this was the way. Where had he gone astray? Distraught by the surreal that slaughtered the serene, encroaching footsteps eluded him.
"Whoa, copasetic!"
Jarred by the voice at his back, Thor whirled to see a jubilant junior, void of formal introduction who shared no classes, enraptured by the pandemonium.
"Didn't mean to spook you. Super handiwork, isn't it?"
Thor emerged from the marsh swiping his mind. "Super wicked."
"You're Thor, aren't you? The one with the snake?"
"I am."
"I'm Kyle. Know who's behind the scenes?"
"A demented devil."
Kyle laughed. "Depends on your outlook."
"What's yours?"
"Divine decadence."
"The garden's decadent?"
"No, the fireworks."
"What about the garden?"
"No devil doing mischief there. I'd call it a cornucopia of emancipation."
"Esoteric vocabulary. How old are you?"
"Eleven."
"Impressive. Define your cornucopia of emancipation."
"You want my honest opinion?"
"I want your nonminced, blunt candor."
Scouring Thor's countenance lacking cynicism, the junior was buoyant to interact with a nonjudgmental senior.
"Racing once or twice a day, I feel free, but in this garden, I'm boundless. It's better than feeling free. I'm the cosmos condensed in a body."
Thor remarked, "Poetic."
Ebullient, the boy inquired, "How do you feel about it?"
"I share your opinion."
"I never see you here."
"Studies and work consume me."
"A shame. I run at the crack of dawn. Open invitation, Thor."
"Noted, Kyle."
Kyle's nose sniffed the air. "I smell breakfast. You going?"
"Later."
Kyle got the hint. Thor prized solitude. "Okay, see ya."
He turned to go.
"See ya," responded Thor gratefully.
Thor watched Kyle canter toward the dining hall, then scurried to dismantle his failed prisms. Restoring the garden to treasured tranquility, he stood midst the snowy roses, overwhelmed with humility. What made him think he could do what nature could not? He sighed at the clouds feathering the sky when suddenly they ruptured, pierced by radiant sun rays of pulsing electromagnetic micro filaments pummeling the patch where Thor was poised. Was he fantasizing light components undetectable to the naked eye? He blinked. The manifestation accelerated. He latched onto a lead sun beam, picturing the ethereal wavelength in his mind as a rollicking roller coaster bathed in whipped cream. He imagined himself plunging into the primary passenger car, holding a paint brush in his hand. Dipping the imaginary brush into the fantasy bucket to paint his vehicle blue, he focused so hard, his wild car jerked, as fumbled focus bumped him back to earth.
Balanced upright, Thor shook off the dirt, eyes straying to the milky roses, feeling stupid. Wait! He rubbed his eyes. The roses were not as bright a white. Rooted in amazement, he sprang to examine. The roses were still white, but sported a faint tint of blue. In a tidal wave of unflappable faith, he rolled up his sleeves lined with certitude, dug in his heels tanned in conviction, and mentally mounted the giddy crest of roller coaster beams with his persistent paint brush of blue. The white roses had no choice, but to emulate the color of jazz.
Hopping to breakfast, skipping to classes, Thor jumped to the garden at lunch. Indigo hailed him. Before dashing to the Museum, he peeked. Sapphire saluted him. Wherever the origin of rays, whatever the shift of days, a unified light, modified from white, insulated the mutant blue roses, loyal to the alchemist kid whose courage bent beams to his will. Thus drizzled layers of magnificence onto the magnitude of Thor's crusade to grow his sanctuary garden.
Echoed requests by board members, asking Theogen to relocate the monthly board meeting, couldn't be ignored without offending the purse strings funding the reputable Institute. An oval table, decorated in green, blended with the backdrop of the astutely-manicured garden. Twelve ivory folding chairs garnished its circumference. The meeting convened punctually at noon. Though the day was sizzling, the council noted the tonic breeze of consistent cool air circulating through a rejuvenating barrier, courtesy of filtering foliage. The conference was lively as usual, although Theogen noticed that Olvirette Fromquist was marred by a diversion. He caught her afflicted head bobbing to a garden patch. He failed to fathom the culprit of her distraction. Was the malady plaguing her nervous system a newly-developed twitch?
The conference ended on a high note. Interspersed throughout the talk were compliments on the garden, climaxed by a spontaneous vote to allocate funds for purchase of a water fountain. A dynamic debate ensued over the fountain's location, culminating in additional appropriations for an elaborate, long-term, ultra-efficient irrigation system to ensure the garden's survival, considering the incessant daily heat.
Upon adjournment, directors dispersed promptly, but not the norm to depart. Through the garden they ambled at leisure, savoring this healthy hiatus from their hectic schedules. Olvirette stood glued in solitude to a spot that had sidetracked her from the congregation. Respecting the privacy of her quirky preoccupation, Theogen briskly strode toward his office. There would be plenty to do, he knew.
"Theogen. I need to speak with you," Olvirette's voice beckoned.
Theogen about-faced, "Certainly, Olvirette."
He retraced his steps to close the gap between them.
"Ever heard of a blue rose?" she inquired, dressed in an atmosphere of suspense.
"I don't know much about roses."
"I do. I'm a rosarian. What do you see there?"
She indicated the modulated hedges where grew mutant roses, bestowed blue by Thor. Theogen looked. The roses curtsied.
"Roses," he replied plainly.
"Blue roses," underlined Olvirette.
He repeated his peep. The roses bowed back.
"Hmm, so they are," Theogen concurred, with no inkling how extraordinary his statement was. Roses were not on his radar – until this matrix moment.
Olvirette's floodgate that squashed excitement gushed with sudden delirium. "Blue roses are an oxymoron, Theogen! They don't exist in nature, still there they are. Where did you procure them?"
"I haven't a clue."
"Who planted them?"
Theogen genuflected on tiptoed diplomacy.
"Does this merit an impromptu inquisition, Olvirette?"
"Good grief, Theogen. How thespian! I'm not heading a tribunal over a rose. A crime it's not to me. No inquest will there be. This is off the record. It's personal, a family obsession. My father spent his life driven to cultivate this elusive color. A tribute to him is this achievement. I wouldn't blight such beauty nor betray a confidence. Have you anything to tell me?"
Theogen was utterly stumped by this interrogation. Effusive queries about garden particulars hadn't claimed an iota of preparation, but he wouldn't breach the oath of secrecy he had sworn to Thor.
"A plurality contributed to the creation of this garden. I don't know who planted those roses."
Olvirette studied his face. "I respect you, Theogen. Your judgment is constant. May I pick one?"
"You may pick as many as you wish."
Olvirette opened her purse and extracted a petite, but formidable pruning shears.
"My dandy companion, handy to carry."
She gaily tap-danced to a bush and clipped a stem sporting a blue rose. As she two-stepped sprightly toward Theogen, the masquerading color liquefied to cream.
Olvirette gaped, thunderstruck in her tracks. "Why, it's blue on the bush, but white in this light."
Returning to her selected bush splashed with Thor's stimulating watercolor brush, she lopped another blue rose from its neighbor. Off slipped its elliptical mask when she retreated from the veiled hedges.
"It's a mirage," she sighed, her bubbling balloon deflating. "They're not blue at all. They simply appear blue in that alcove."
From a distance, Thor sighed also. On a break between classes, he had spied Olvirette clip the roses. Disturbed, he muttered, "Careless. What have I done?" He hadn't foreseen his callow cause, deemed inconsequential, would careen into a collision course dubbed demolition derby. Would Olvirette initiate an imperial investigation that would lead to his arrest by the State? She was temporarily disheartened, but a government review would reveal the paranormal blue light, fatal to his freedom. The blue roses would have to be destroyed without a trace of Thor's involvement.
No ray was on display in the dead of night when Thor scampered to the garden. Closing his eyes, he internalized the beams, riding on the same imaginary roller coaster with his paint brush, returning them to white. Dismounting the deviations he had concocted left him exhausted. Did he succeed? He would confirm the upshot in the morning.
Revolving to depart, Thor was petrified by Theogen, peering at him. What to say? What to do? An adrenaline surge overwhelmed his exhaustion. He could hear the ramming beat of his racing heart. The fight or flight syndrome, which would it be? In this case, neither – he could not escape Theogen, his mainstay. The stitches of his frail fabric were seamed to the Institute. Severing the headmaster's approval, the vessel carrying his cargo of lifeblood would sink.
Minus stir or speech, the deadlock lasted an eternity for the despondent orphan awaiting the master's move. A skylark twittered; a sparrow resounded. Breaking the ice of impasse, Theogen's sage features rippled with age came slow-paced within inches of Thor. In a voice below a whisper, he was barely audible.
"A topic you care to discuss?"
"No, sir."
"Then I suggest you head to bed. There are bugs that bite your bottom in the night."
"Yes, sir."
The limber lad fled in a nimble getaway.
"Thor..."
Not nimble enough, Thor was prompt to pivot.
"Your garden is spectacular…"
"Thank you, sir."
"…Subtracting those biting blue roses."
"Yes, sir."
"No bumping into them hereafter. Deal?"
"Deal."
"Goodnight, Thor."
"Goodnight, sir."