Her thin arm beckoned from a threadworn coat of no distinct colour, while the soft rain fell as a blessing over all, blurring the torn and whole together into a gentle bath of tender hues tinged with a sort of silveriness whenever the sun briefly glowed. Her blue-veined hand offered every passerby the stump of a garish pink bouquet of rose buds: "Please, please buy a rose!" she called against the damp breeze. Thus was the Rose of Sorrows bought then hurried home to a warm bright room; there under the brilliant bulb an unforgiving truth was exposed both bitter and harsh. On inspection, each pink bud revealed itself as not a bud at all, but merely an old, almost withered flower. Someone, the sad rose seller or perhaps a pandering lover, had carefully coiled a fine wire tightly around attempting to shape it into a new rose; to prevent the bruised petals from falling to their natural end on the earth. Each of the flowers tested not really pink but were a crispy-edged brown that had been dyed the gaudiest pink, not out of bad taste but merely to better conceal the death of petals. O yes, the heavy odour had been a deliberate squirt of fulsome drugstore concoction. Great history of beauty, romance, even the extended exacting arts of horticulturists brought down to this pathetic masquerade! Expectations of youth and beauty end with senility and dust. The wonder is: who has the deepest pain, the seller, the buyer, or the rose? Destinies intermingle for those who consort within the World of the Rose.
Bookmark/Search this post with:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
