Turtle Channel!!!

For as long as she could remember, the little girl’s mother had always told her to find a better flower bush than the one that was currently growing outside their front yard. Her mother had found a fairly common species of daisy. Even though the daisies she sold every morning brought quite a respectable sum of money, she was still unhappy. She spent most of her life wistfully wishing she had more time to find something better. “Perhaps I should have gone North of the village, or perhaps hike up the mountain”, she would say.

The strange thing was that the little girl’s father would take care of most of the household expenditure despite it being the woman’s responsibility. He neither smoked tobacco, nor drank at the taverns hence he always had extra silver to bring home unlike most other men in the village who like to spend everything they earn from working in the fields on getting themselves ridiculously drunk at night. The little girl’s mother would always have enough for new clothes and accessories. Yet in comparison with her best friend, she had little, for her best friend had very fortunately found a rare peach-coloured rose bush that fetched quite a tidy sum of money every week.

Anyhow, the girl’s mother got more and more excited as the time for her daughter to venture out for three days in search of a flower drew closer. She seemed to think that her daughter’s success in finding a flower would mean that she would get more spending money. The young girl felt a lot of pressure and anxiety and fear that she may not be able to find something that would please her mother.

Again and again, her mother told her how capable she was at finding the most beautiful flower in the world. “I have such high hopes for you”, her mother told her everyday. “You will be the first village girl to become a princess!”

On a bright Sunday morning, the village celebrated her venturing out. She was to return before the sun went down on Tuesday. In her bag, she had packed some bread and drinking water. The young girl said her goodbyes and turned to walk away. As she left her village, she could her mother cry out, “Go to the mountains! Get the most beautiful flower in the world!! Make me proud!”

And so up the mountain she went.
(To be continued…)