May's weathered hands raked through the dirt, giving her pumpkin plants space to breathee. Brilliant orange and glistening from last night's rain, they hung plump and round, almost ready to be picked. May smiled tenderly, her wrinkled face lighting up as she surveyed the products of her hard work. All around her, vegetables were creeping up through the soil, tentatively unfurling their leaves and stretching their stalks towards the sunlight. Although the smell of rain still lingered, May watered the vegetables carefully. She reached into the furthest corners of her patch, searching out the smallest sprouts so none were left out.
Her back often ached from leaning over the garden with a watering can or spade, but she didn't mind the sacrifice. She didn't care about the shallow cuts she reguarly received either. Before, when May's neighbours still stopped to talk to her in the street, they had urged her to buy gradening gloves, like the flimsy floral-printed things they wore. But May didn't need them; her hands were as tough and worn as the corrugated iron on her roof. She was suntanned too, with brown arms that were were relaxed now, in her favourite place. But when she was nervous, May had an unconscious habit of pulling her head in towards her body, like a turtle.
When the watering was finished, May rested for a moment. The clouds shifted and for a few moments May's sprawling vegetable patch could be seen in full, glorious sunlight. Her gaze wondered from plant to plant, taking in the beetroot, cauliflower, celery, beans, silver-beet, leeks, tomatoes, onions, parsnips, rhubarb and pumpkins. Not for the first time, May wished that everyone were more like her vegetables, or if that couldn't happen, that everyone would go away and leave her and her vegetables alone. Then she would be free of the snide comments, the turned backs, the whispered conversations that followed her. Vegetables never judged anyone.
May realised as she studied the garden that the rain had not only been beneficial to the vegetables. With a sigh, she began the long process of weeding. But May didn't really dislike her task. She enjoyed taking responsibility for her plants, protecting them from invading weeds. As she made her way down the woodchip path May noticed a little rhubarb plant that had sprouted during the night. It was almost obscured by unwanted greenery. Looking closer, she saw the weeds had formed a sort of interlocking pattern...Bars, she thought, They're prison bars.
She yanked out the weeds, feeling the familiar tears start to form in her eyes. Why hadn't she done the same for Micheal? Why had she been so proud?
May walked slowly away, wondering why she could never go a day, even spent in her own vegetable patch, without being reduced to tears anymore. She reached for a hankerchief. It was all over now, she told herself. It was too late. Stupid to keep clinging to these regrets, stupid, but May did anyway. Apart from gardening, it seemed like the only thing she knew how to do. How could she ever forget, when no one else would?
Sucking in a calming breath, she focused on spreading fresh peastraw over some soil. Gently and expertly, she continued, plucking out weeds, turning over dirt, pruning the leaves...nurturing, helping, protecting, doing for her garden what she wished she had done for her son.
) but it held its ground as solid flash fiction. With a bit more detail and background information, like the story with Michael and May, this can be a terrific piece. 
