Chrissie hadn’t been able to sleep all night. He had to get his hands on one of those flowers. This was one of those times when, not being a sociable person really did not work towards his advantage. What happened was this.
Not long before, maybe a month or so, one of the girls in the typing pool had returned from a pilgrimage to Spain and she had brought with her a little sparkling jar in which something strange floated, something like a jelly fish, only it was not from the sea.
The girl told everyone, proudly holding up the jar to the light, that it is a sanctified flower that feeds on vinegar and whoever owns a bit of it, feeds it and grows it, then that person will be bestowed with miraculous luck and fortune.
As it happened, the young woman was asked into marriage just a few days after her return to work, so this event solidified the belief everybody assigned to the unusual looking vinegar flower.
Since then, she had shared tiny bits of it with her friends and it indeed seemed to be doing some magic, as all of them reported unexpected strikes of luck.
One had won some money at the lotto, another was going on a trip abroad, so without anyone noticing the belief in the flower spread like wild fire and everybody coveted a tiny piece of it.
As with any limited resources, the girl had become very careful about sharing her precious flower, as for it to be powerful, you needed to have a tiny bit from the main source or from one that was as close as possible.
The story was that if your vinegar flower came from one that was too far removed from the initial consecrated one, then the power would be very faint, barely doing any miracle.
Chrissie wanted his bit to come from the main flower, he needed a lot of luck, he was too poor to be able to settle for anything else. Chrissie had that obsession with money, that you can truly develop only when you are living each day staring in the abyss of poverty, painfully aware of every little cent in your pocket.
This had been his life for so long that now, he was sure, all his problems would be solved if he just had a bit more money. Money was the solution to all his worries.
Everybody around seemed to have a vinegar flower, and more importantly, they all seemed to benefit from the good fortune it brought. Chrissie knew that he had just one thing going for him, his looks. For some reason or other women found him attractive and his cold, quiet sort appealed to them.
A plan formed in his mind. Although he was not interested in the least in the girl, he wanted his bit of flower, but was too proud to just ask. So he decided to steal a tiny bit and then grow it himself.
One evening, when everybody was going home he pretended to have to stay behind and finish some papers. He asked the flower girl to help him finish typing some most urgent notices, that had to go out early next morning.
She could not say no to him. He watched her intently, he offered her a cup of team, and complimented her on her skills. Sometime after having her tea she felt dizzy and went to sit on the couch for a bit to recover. That was when Chrissie took a little scissors a cut a bit off the vinegar flower. He placed it in a jar he had all ready and then returned to check on the typing girl. She was sleeping, snoring gently on the couch.
He did not feel comfortable leaving her there sleeping in the open space, so he just called her house using the number listed in the employee directory.
Her parents came over in record time worried about the honor of their daughter. When they were satisfied everything was above board, they were extremely grateful to Chrissie and invited him to dinner.
As it turned out, the girl worked in the office just because she wanted to get some life experience before getting married, she really did not need the money as her parents lived in a sprawling house close to the center of town.
He had just dropped his coat in the arms of a maid when Chrissie looked up and was pinned into place by two green eyes looking at him intently.
‘Thank you so much for taking care of my little sister. It shows you are a man of great character.’
She held out her hand and he shook it not knowing if he will ever be able to let her go.
They hit it off like a house on fire. She was what he had been missing and looking for all his life.
When the father noticed the closeness and assured him, over a glass of brandy, that his daughters are well endowed he almost fell off his feet.
He only had the vinegar flower for an evening and it had changed his life. It truly was magical.
You will not be disappointed to know that, Chrissie indeed did marry the girl of his dreams and her dowry comprised of a nice sum of money and a decent looking cottage close to the town green. Sadly, things did not go so smoothly for his sister in law, her husband ran with all her jewels and the family was appalled to find out that he was living it up in Paris with a well known floozy.
Chrissie’s vinegar flower dried out in its jar, ignored and forgotten in the tumultuousness of everyday life, but, every time Chrissie saw a vinegar bottle he would shake it gently and say thank you to the deposits on the bottom, that sometimes seemed to form a jelly like shape, looking almost like a magical flower.