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Pink

A Florida Folktale

retold by

S.E. Schlosser

She was always in the garden. Day after day after day. It drove him crazy. Supper never came when he wanted it and he had to go outside and kneel down in the dirt every dad-blame time he wanted to have a conversation with his wife. When he complained, she told him to get his own supper. Ha! She knew he couldn't boil water without burning it.
       The garden wasn't the only thing that drove him crazy. His wife also loved the color pink. She wore something pink every dad-blame day of her life, and most of the flowers in the garden were pink. "Choose another color," he yelled one day. So what color did she choose? Mauve!
       One day, his wife started complaining about her knees. She wanted an assistant to help her in the garden. "Why do you need an assistant?" he grumbled at her. "Do you want to help me?" she retorted. "Heck no," he replied, and told her to go ahead and hire a gardener.
       He didn't expect the handsome young fellow who showed up the next day to help his wife in the garden. The fellow had a charming manner that soon had his wife laughing and fluffing up her hair as they talked. That drove him really crazy. Some folks might think it was natural for her to find the new gardener charming. But he wondered.
      He started coming home early from work to spy on his wife and the new gardener. They were always laughing together as they worked. He didn't like it. Then his wife went out and bought a brand-new red lipstick, though she'd only ever bought pink lipstick before, and got her hair cut in a new style. That really made him suspicious.
      He spoke to the new gardener one afternoon while his wife was out. The young man denied that there was any hanky-panky going on, but he knew better and fired the gardener on the spot. At supper that night, he confronted his wife with his suspicions. "I'm not having an affair," she retorted, "but if you keep this up, he could get lucky."
     Her smart reply filled him with rage. His vision went red and misty as his hands closed around his wife's neck and he started shaking her. It was several minutes before he calmed down enough to realize he was shaking a rag-doll figure that was no longer breathing. He dropped his wife's dead body on the floor in horror, realizing what he'd done, and what would happen to him if he were caught.
      Fortunately, the dirt was always disturbed around his house because of his wife's incessant gardening, so he dumped his wife's body into a flowerbed and cover the grave-mound with pink flower seedlings. End of problem. He closed the house the next day, telling the neighbors that they were going North to be near his wife's ailing sister, and put the house on the market to be sold.
      When seven years had passed without suspicion, he decided it was safe to come home. He got an apartment and told folks that his wife had left him some time ago. But he was frightened of discovery, and wanted to know if his wife was still buried in the flowerbed of his former house. Waiting for the new owners to leave for the weekend, he slipped into the garden at dusk to look for the grave. To his horror, he saw the old mound was still there, and was still planted with pink flowers. Only now, the pink flowers formed the shape of a woman! Trembling, he dug a deep narrow hole into the mound, feeling for his wife's bones. But her body was gone!
      Alarmed, he made discreet inquiries and was told that the new owners had found a family gravesite on their property and had the grave moved to the local cemetery. He felt a surge of relief at this explanation, but morbid curiosity sent him along to the cemetery to check on the truth of the tale.
       He searched for a long time, looking for a grave with no name. Then he caught a glimmer of pink, and his pulses started pounding. Could it be? Yes, there was a narrow grave, covered with pink flowers. It had no name attached to it, and he knew it was her.
      In that moment, his vision was clouded once again by a red mist. He lurched as he was suddenly overwhelmed by a massive heart attack, and his helpless body tumbled down among the pink flowers as the whole world went dark. His last thought was of a dead rag-doll figure that had once been his wife.
       After the authorities found and removed the dead body, the flowers crushed by his fall never grew back on the unmarked grave. Each spring, the unmarked tomb is covered with pink blossoms, though the flowers never grow in the blackened, body-shape space where the murder's body lay. And in the house where the couple once lived, the pink flowers on the empty grave mound still grow each spring in the shape of a woman's body, no matter how many times the owners have rooted them out.

Read more Florida ghost stories in Spooky Florida by S.E. Schlosser.

Comments

boring

Posted by: Anonymous | August 26, 2010 07:39 AM

ummmmmm........ creepy......

Posted by: Anonymous | August 27, 2010 07:35 PM

cool and spooky story

Posted by: lunatrix | August 30, 2010 06:26 PM

Weird...but I like it!

Posted by: D-star :D | September 1, 2010 02:53 PM

I kinda like it, somehow!!!

Posted by: Christine | September 3, 2010 12:55 AM

funny

Posted by: josue | September 10, 2010 11:23 PM

cool!!!!!

Posted by: abi | September 12, 2010 07:14 PM

Woah, this is kind of scary, but only like, a little. Not THAT scary but the ending "No matter how many times the owners have rooted them out" that was kind of scary!!

Posted by: Bestyfriends | September 19, 2010 03:26 PM

reminds me of my self and pink but not the garden part but cool storie

Posted by: tasia | September 25, 2010 02:37 PM

wow creepy

Posted by: elmosworld | September 26, 2010 06:44 PM

weird but interesting

Posted by: me | October 1, 2010 08:41 PM

wow it is kinda but wow

Posted by: ray | October 7, 2010 04:01 PM

kind of odd, but interesting

Posted by: Rachel | October 11, 2010 07:20 PM

amazing! it is really interesting. wonder if its true

Posted by: vicky | October 12, 2010 08:04 PM

Wow creepy but Interesting.

Posted by: Ariel | October 20, 2010 06:35 PM

that wasn't scary at all, that kinda made me laugh.

Posted by: Anonymous | October 22, 2010 09:26 AM

Awseome!

Posted by: Anonymous | October 23, 2010 04:29 PM

enjoyable? for shore its cool!

Posted by: Anonymous | October 24, 2010 03:21 PM

I love that story! I tsort of givin me the hibibajeepies about th epart with the rage doll.OHHHHH!(shudder shudder)

Posted by: Kayli | October 25, 2010 04:30 PM

wow...that's not creepy at all......

Posted by: Madame Frankie | October 27, 2010 11:03 AM

odd...

Posted by: Anonymous | October 28, 2010 10:44 AM

cool story. Love the twisted ending

Posted by: jasmine | October 28, 2010 08:36 PM

love it but terrified in pink

Posted by: maria ellamae | October 29, 2010 06:19 AM

it wasnt scary but i liked the end

Posted by: bre | October 29, 2010 05:46 PM

I LOVED it,it was so coll and creepy

Posted by: Anonymous | October 30, 2010 03:20 PM

It is A cool story i was reading it to my little brother and he was a cry baby

Posted by: David | October 31, 2010 05:20 AM

Creepy but I LOVE IT CAUSE IT IS ALL PINK!!! :D

Posted by: Noelle | November 7, 2010 11:40 PM

that was a little more morbid and disturbing than creepy...

Posted by: Sakura | November 26, 2010 04:15 PM

ohh this is creepy. dos anyone think that his wifes spirit caused his heart attack. cuz i do

Posted by: Anonymous | December 10, 2010 12:04 PM

Whoever said this wasnt scary was wrong!!!!! I almost passed out while reading this!!!! D:

Posted by: Dionna | December 11, 2010 11:10 AM

this was a very interesting and somewhat scary story. we have one similar to it in my little hometown down in GA. but instead of there being an eintire family, there was the body of the wife, and the gardener, who had bought the house after the husband moved out. the gardener killed himself and ordered his brother to bury him next to the lady, who's murder he had witnessed through the window of the house. and its purple flowers instead of pink.

Posted by: Nikki | January 2, 2011 02:10 PM

ive heard this same story but with hair

Posted by: little miss number 4 | January 9, 2011 08:47 PM

i was ok not my favorite story the only reason i am on this website is because i am looking for some really cool storys fo my sleepover i am having with my bestest friends in the world i think this will be our second sleepover we had our other one a few months ago we were freaked out because we told creepy crazy storys and then we went outside and i almost had a heart attack because one of my friend snuck up behind me and jumped out of a bush

Posted by: Anonymous | January 30, 2011 08:10 PM

CREEPY!!!!!!

Posted by: CRYSTAL | January 31, 2011 08:39 PM

uuummm....that was so ccrrrreeeeeeppyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: haley | March 29, 2011 08:57 PM

amazing

Posted by: kk | April 13, 2011 10:57 AM

I liked it but pink really? Why that color

Posted by: Anonymous | April 18, 2011 03:59 PM

I LIKED IT.......... BUT JUST A LITTLE SHOCKING =D

Posted by: EVA JIMENEZ | May 11, 2011 11:38 AM

that wuz creepy as heckkk mann!