The yellow sea

From the top of the hill, I could see how the wind was feeding the fire that was destroying our sunflower fields. 

Everything red. Everything black. 

I wish I could say that after it I was working side by side with my family, to transform this catastrophe back into our beautiful yellow sea. But the truth is that I have no hope. My dad came into my bedroom after two days. He opened the curtains. I turned around; I didn't want to see the burnt landscape. 

-You cannot stay here forever... An extra pair of hands would be very useful. 

How could he say that?

-Nothing will ever grow there anymore. 

-Now, that's not the right attitude, isn't?

He sat next to me, sighed and stroked my hair. 

-I tell you what. You need to use your imagination and pretend that there is a tiny fairy world underneath all the coal, and we need to save them so...

-I was the one who started the fire. 

The words came out of my mouth bluntly. He didn't say anything for a while and I started sobbing. 

-I wanted to create a new puppet for the twins -I explained myself while crying-, but by mistake, I left the glass buttons that you made on the floor and suddenly a small fire started. I tried to put it out but the wind... Once the fire was at the top of the flowers I couldn't reach it and the wind just made it worse! I could only run up the hill to get out of the field and... I'm so sorry... I'm so sorry dad... 

I don't know how long I cried my heart out, begging in my head that he will forgive me. He kept stroking my hair. At some point he said:

-Art destroys us. If we don't follow its will it just plays all the odds against us to put us on our place. You have seen how many times I've been working in a new piece and it suddenly breaks... It just takes some time and sacrifices to get it right. Do you know why we had those sunflowers?

I didn't want to speak. Neither to know the answer. 

-It came with the house. For real. We bought the house because of the space for the glass studio. We don't even take care of them. They just grow, die, and grow back again. And if we clean all the coal from the ground and fertilize it, I'm pretty sure they will grow back again. And next time, just leave the glass in the studio. 

He kissed the top of my head and left. I stayed in bed, speechless. What the hell was he talking about?

After a while, I stood up to close the curtains. Everyone was helping out. I stared for a few minutes feeling the worst person in the world. Then I saw it: the area that mum was taking care off didn't look that bad. The burnt flowers and the coal were gone, leaving just a dark patch of soil. I went outside and reunited with my dad. Everyone was ignoring me; they were too focused. He gave me another yet longer kiss on the head, and toss me a pair of gardening gloves and a small sickle.