Lavender and Gunpowder

by Juliet Laughton, Canberra Grammar School

This short story is inspired by the ‘Lavender’ scare, named by Senator Dirkisen, which occurred during the Cold War.

“They are not trustworthy!” Mr Johnson, the mayor of the little town called Freedom, cried out. The other farmers at the town meeting fell silent. “They sympathise with those filthy people who we work against!” he yelled into the hall, his knuckles turning white from gripping the roughly-sanded podium. The room was filled with farmers like Mr Johnson, whispering threats and uncertainties about the predicament they had found themselves in. “Those field-folk work with those wheat farmers! They have a taste for sharing flesh, and soon they’ll be coming after ours! They indulge in degrading activity, immoral acts! There is only one way to have security with such people; by eradicating them!” Mr Johnson belted with one final wave of his fist, wrinkling his striped red and white suit. The other farmers were screaming absurdities about the people who lived in the pale purple fields nearby. Without further prompting from Mr Johnson, the community had come to an agreement; the Lavender folk had to be removed, before they, themselves, removed the farmers.

The late afternoon sun mixed with the soft scent of lavender had pulled Dean into the flowers. He inhaled the intoxicatingly sweet air. He tasted the wind. Both his cheeks were kissed by sunbeams. He pondered the thought of returning home but was brought back to reality from a ringing noise in the distance and the sharp smell of sulphur burning the back of his throat. He droopily raised his head, eyes level with the sprigs of light purple, and there, in the distance, his eyes were drawn to an anomaly: red lavender. It was a crimson red, deep and bold against the other flowers. The colour dripped down in rivulets from the flower and onto the stalk, staining the pastel green.

Behind the revolting irregularity of nature stood two men who glared daggers at the ground. They gripped a long metal barrel with a wooden handle, pointer finger curved around a trigger like a claw. “This is the mark of a safer world,” one of the men declared. He spat at the ground and lifted up a large black boot with which he crushed the purple lavender, and continued trudging through the fields, other men following behind.

Dean had burst out from the lavender and into the clearing where the other Lavender Folk had been singing and dancing by the fire. The fire flickered in the darkness, illuminating what little space it could in the pitch black. “Red …” he panted, stumbling and rambling into the middle of the dancing “… red lavender!” he yelled. Soon the singing and dancing had come to a stop. Feet were bare and dirtied from the dust they had kicked up whilst in joyous unity. The crackling of the fire was the only sound that stopped the lack of noise to become silence. “

“What do you mean?” one of the Lavender Folk questioned, pulling their hand away from their dance partner to walk a little closer.

“There was red lavender! It’s true I swear!” Dean continued, wildly gesturing with his hands, still stopping between words to catch his breath. The people looked from one to another, and back to Dean, faces scrunched and contorted in confusion. The air had become volatile as the fire started to die. “I was waiting for Alex …” Dean continued, trying to explain what he saw, but another explosion rang out. A dancer fell, her hand pressed against her heart as red seeped into her clothes. The quiet was no longer. Screams interrupted the Lavender Folk as they dispersed towards the fields. The fire died down, flickering a pale glow.

That night was cold and unforgiving, wind tussling Dean’s hair as he crawled through the lavender. His breath shook with every gasp for air. He could practically taste the metallic substance which covered the dirt as people fell one by one. A shot rang out to signify their demise. Dean could smell the lavender no more, but a burning smoke which coerced tears to tumble from his lashes to the grass where the lavender danced violently with the breeze. He ran far from the cabins and into the fields, desperate for a blanket of affection to smother him until he took one final breath. The ground met his hands and knees as he stumbled along, but he soon came to a parting in the flowers where it was squashed flat. Even in the darkness, he could recognise that this was where he laid earlier that day when he saw the red lavender. He pushed on, making his way to where he thought the red lavender was. The stalks brushed past him. His palm met cloth which covered a plump arm. Dean was shaking too much to move. He lifted his hand up to wipe away his tears and see if he could look at whoever lay in the darkness without the magnifying blur. He set his hands down and blinked away the few remaining drops. He didn’t have the moment to steel himself.

Mr Johnson cocked the head of his gun up, and asked for someone to pass another round of ammo. They stomped their way back through the field, when a sob cried out in the black, interrupting his march. “Hold up your lantern.” Mr Johnson ordered, and in the faint glow of the light, Mr Johnson saw a truly gruesome sight. A boy cradled the body of their first termination, of whom they met when they entered the lavender fields. The boy sobbed into the other’s neck. Or so he was supposed to think. Mr Johnson fumbled with the bullets, but he managed to shoot the damned thing after it cried a few words of warmth into the corpse’s neck, imitating the way that he would talk to Mrs Johnson. “Perverted creature,” he uttered, and the farmers all nodded in agreement before they continued stomping down the lavender in order to find more of the Lavender Folk.

A new sun dawned above the field, casting long shadows which stood erect in the swaying lavender. The light bathed the land in a tinged haze. The rays conformed the colours of the flowers to different shades of yellow. “We,” Mr Johnson stated to the hall, “have protected ourselves from the thieves.” He took his hands and straightened his royal blue bow tie, before strolling beside the podium and continuing. “The people who live in the wheat fields, who use their sickles not just for the grains they grow, who threatened us, threaten us no longer!”

The farmers cheered, raising their hands to their hearts in relief and in pride of their good work. Mr Johnson didn’t acknowledge the previous night’s escapade at the meeting. In fact, he didn’t mention the lavender purge at all after that. No one did. Though, if one went and stood in the field, they would smell something sharp and burning, disguised by the curtain of the sickly, sweet scent of lavender.