Fleur-de-lis: Inspired by Claude Monet’s “The Water-Lily Pond”

He had asked her to meet him at noon on the bridge. She had said it was her favorite place, and noon was the perfect time. The sun would shine directly overhead and its light would kiss the water below and settle on it in a sheer film of iridescence. She would sit cross-legged on the highest point of the bridge, and he would sit across from her, watching her watch the water. The lilies would blanket the pond, gliding across the surface to leave one cluster and join another. They would stand up then, dust themselves off and lean over the bridge to catch their reflections in the little spaces between the lilies on the pond’s surface. Their faces would then linger on the water, framed by the flowers, suspended on the water.

He arrived half an hour early, and sat on the bridge, exactly as he had pictured it. At noon, the pond was far lovelier than he had anticipated. He waited for her, keeping an eye on the opening between the trees surrounding the pond, where she would emerge from any minute now. He sat there for what seemed an eternity, and then he stood up to get a better look. He leaned over the bridge and craned his neck, stretching it as far as it would go. read more.