A/N: working with plants, dirt, and occasionally animal bones for the sake of science makes one very comfortable with things most people aren't. Only 8 more days of flashficfeb left for this year!
Flash Fiction February 2025 Day 20 Prompt: Freedom
Working with the collection of rather unusual people I’ve come to know as friends and colleagues results in being exposed to a number of fields adjacent to my own. It comes with chats over tea, swapping tools when someone has what you need but don’t have, dinners and meetings discussing formal and informal points of interest in our respective careers that may or may not overlap from time to time. It also comes with pain. Dealing with death and being comfortable around it, acknowledging that it too is a natural part of life, is essential. We all fear death in the end, working around it however makes it the tiniest bit less scary. Uninhibited the soul is able to attain a sort of freedom incomprehensible to mere mortals who one day or another will undertake that journey to pass from this world into the world to come, welcomed with open arms. While sitting on an old fallen tree taking a break from writing in the journal I carry at all times to keep track of necessary tasks I continue to think about my strange yet endearing colleagues and the world of work we inhabit that from the outside looks so foreign and alien. Sitting there lost in thought, a courier approaches me, catching my attention with a wave of the hand telling me I have a few letters as well as a small package roughly the size of a book though it feels much too light to be a book. After thanking the courier he runs off to his next delivery allowing me to open and read through the letters in the quiet of the forest as it begins to slowly turn to rolling hills and scattered farmland until it at long last reaches the sea. I read the letters before opening the package. The first letter that looks as if it had a rough time arriving is from my cousin, Ariel, though we always have called him Ari for short, who now lives far away from me. The letter, which still has tiny pieces of sand stuck in the folded crevices, writes to see what I am doing now since leaving home, and asking when I will come next to visit as I am greatly missed. The letter then includes a list of those who look forward to seeing me again when I have the time to put down my alchemy tools and see them. As much as I miss home, the price of freedom is more than worth it being able to work when and where I wish on my own schedule rather than being employed in the lab of some university. My mother and father are of course at the top of the list in the letter expressing good wishes, as is my sister Liat and the rest of my immediate family. Listed below them are some extended family that over the years I have seen less and less of though we remain close. My aunt who shares my name, my cousins Shmuel, Elena, and Ronen and their children who are around Liat’s age- Yair, Sharon, Kfir, and Avigail all have scrawled messages for me to read on the back of the page or drawn pictures. The second letter is from my father who invites me home to celebrate the spring festival. The first buds on the trees are beginning to appear, a similar occurrence will happen where I am in a few weeks. That leads to crowds of tourists in awe of the colors and delicate petals. The letter ends saying that if I cannot make it that is alright, there will be more holidays, and the box is from him as well. A small gift to brighten my day, the letter says of the box. Careful to not break anything I manage to unwrap the string and paper protecting it to find the contents inside are truly perfect for spring, and also for work. There is a small teacup and saucer with gold detailing and painted with pink flowers, inside the cup sits a bag of tea leaves apparently specially grown using some of my favorites. This will be a very useful gift. I can have tea while examining the makeup of the tea leaves, and whatever other interesting things I come across in my travels. I will make it home one of these days, perhaps I’ll even bring Naryu with me, for now however I am content with simply having the freedom to roam and explore.
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