Rose
A flower is a flower, but a rose, a rose is a beauty of a completely different sort.
In a small carriage outside of a little town named Bridges a prostitute delivers a 7 pound 8 ounce baby girl at 3:34 p.m., her father, unknown, Rose. Rose lived in a foster home for the first 13 years of her life, a quiet child, peaceful and somewhat numb to the world. I remember the first time I ever met that girl; I was about 19 at the time. She said I was her only friend in the whole world. Looking back on it I guess she gave me too much credit. My father, James Howard Sr., owned the foster home that Rose lived in. She called me Jimmy boy and I called her pretty Rose. She never really talked to anyone but me, and the animals of course. Boy did Rose love critters and creatures, no matter how ugly they came.
On Rose’s 13th birthday I took her to the little lake right outside of our hometown, Bridges, and boy did she love it. We ran back and forth and jumped into the deep end forgetting all essence of time. I looked over at my watch that she had laid on the ground so majestically. It had turned 8 o’clock already, supper was at 7:30, Papa was gonna be mad at us. She asked me where her gift was, I had told her all day I had a secret gift I would give her. She asked for it maybe about every 30 minutes, and I always said “Later Rose”. Later had come, I said close your eyes, as I peered at her beautiful face through the cold nights air. Then I kissed her, time had stopped for a few seconds. Then she fell, passed out on the ground. She laid there like some sort of log on the mud.
Rose! I screamed, are you okay? But she didn’t answer; I was so scared I didn’t know what to do. I remembered a few of my friends were meeting at the Midtown Bar in town, I ran there so I’d have an alibi. I got in just after 10, I knew Papa would be mad I was out with my friends so late, but it would be better than knowing I killed Rose. I walked in expecting to get chewed out for about ten minutes, and then I’d just go to sleep. Tomorrow they’d be looking for Rose, and you wouldn’t believe how often kids go missing at a foster home. I went to the living room, that’s usually where Papa was at this time, smoking his pipe and reading a good scary story to the kids that couldn’t sleep. Sitting there amongst the crowd of parentless owls was Rose. Fresh out of her shower like she always was at this time of night, listening to the story.
I couldn’t believe it; I ran upstairs and awaited her to go to her room. Her room was only three doors down from mine, so I could peek out my door from the foot of my bed and see everything in the hallway. Like a ghost she slowly walked up the creaking old steps, remnant from old Victorian wood. Sometimes I joked that this house with eight bedrooms and just two bathrooms was as old as Papa, he was pretty old in fact. I called to her, Rose, I’m sorry if my gift was wrong to give. She walked to me hugged me within an inch of my life and whispered a lifetime of wisdom into my young ears. Dear child, through your kiss I have seen the sins of this world, past and future. Tonight shall be my last here, I am needed. I asked her where she was needed, and she replied everywhere. That would be the last time I saw rose for almost twenty years.
One autumn day I sat in my bar, the Midtown Bar. I had won it from old man Middleton in a card game a few years back. I plopped on a rusty old seat and watched the day pass me; this town sure had changed in its ways. In a way its innocence had been stripped of it, the town was filled with sinners and blasphemy from alley to courtyard. On my daily stop past the foster home, as I normally did to see Papa and take the kids some treats. I saw her, Rose, just as beautiful as she had been when she left. The beauty had returned to Bridges to see her old home, and visit Papa. She sat and told me of her travels and the friends she had picked up over the years. She seemed to be changed; her tales weren’t of the Rose I left for dead that day. She had returned a woman, full and without repent. Coffee and muffins, her favorite. We sat up for most of the night reminiscing upon days past, until the suns rising. I had fallen asleep before her, just as I always did, and when I opened my eyes she was gone.
I searched the house, high and low in need of seeing her face. I knew the night before could not be the end of it all, she hadn’t slipped away from me once more. I walked to the door, ready to return to my empty home, and begin my day anew. Saddened I walked with a knock in my step, and my arms simply being pulled by my body. My head hung low and eyes almost completely closed, trying my hardest not to cry. Down the last step, facing the garden, I saw her. I ran to her kneeling body, steadily at work, planting. She said she thought the home needed a little more beauty to it. Me in my corny ways, saying; your all the beauty this place needs. She politely smiled and ignored it, but I didn’t hesitate to compliment her more. Like a child in need of affection, I simply wanted her to announce her love for me, as I kept mine so loudly secretive.
She told me at the end the week her garden would be full and life would be pulled from this home. I asked why she had become so mournful of the world and bleak to any emotion shown. Once more she smiled, walking back into the house to wash up, and ignored every word I said. Later that night we sat up, coffee and muffins like always. I thought to myself why, after all these years and all these changes, she still loved coffee and muffins. But, before I was allowed to utter my thoughts, she told me why. She said I love things, materials and objects, maintained by man and created by God. Muffins and coffee, so natural of the earth, yet needed to be nurtured by the hands of life to be at its perfection. Coffee bitter and brute, just as the world was and just as it would always be. Then she said she liked muffins because they were ugly cupcakes.
I could see she had recognized herself as an ugly cupcake, yet I thought she was the most gorgeous muffin that the world had ever been allowed to consummate. I finally got around to asking her why she had left that night, and what my kiss meant to her. She went on for hours, talking of time and of the peacefulness end that is death. She said she had died that night by the little lake, and a woman had been born. My kiss was an act of sin, one that she could never reverse. I had acted as the apple of knowledge; in turn it was my own fault for losing my one true love. She told me that she had attempted to find love many times before. Yet none could erase the pain and pleasure of my kiss. She met a fisherman named John; she said he reminded her of me the most. So eager in love yet, knowing not of the causes behind it.
He would be at sea for weeks at a time and his only request upon returning, was a kiss. She quickly realized the commotion behind her lips caress. No more than a week after her kissing him for the first time, John had died at sea. He and his crew had all been toppled by a monster wave, yet his body was the only one never found. With jealous eyes I ignored the details she expressed to me, only hearing that she had kissed another. Desperate to hear more, I sat and listened with baited breath. She told me next of a French man named Alexander, she admitted him to be her favorite lover. The French, how wondrous they were with the human body. Her fear of his death disallowed him to ever kiss her, no matter how hard he tried.
One night he walked home drunk, as he often did, and she hated it. When drunk he seemed to be a man of different sorts. Not a lover or a passionate write but a demon so horny and angry. He asked of her body, she refused just as any woman would in times like that. But, her no’s wouldn’t go without test and triumph. Rape became the game; I sat there unable to find the slick words I normally could. He threw himself over her body, pressing her on the bed and ripping her clothes free. He released her arms, still pinning her down. She tried to fight him but her strength would not allow for it. He started with a kiss, and unlike his fantasies, it was also where he finished. He had died of some heart disease that wouldn’t be discovered for forty more years. I wanted to hug her, knowing that she truly did see the sins of the world. I guess this little town was her haven, where she felt the most at home. Luke and Arthur were after the drunken Frenchmen, twins; she fell in love with the two by accident. Con artists, they believed Rose to have come from money, as her beauty often eluded.
Their fates had been just as the other two, a house fire consumed their souls. Lastly, before her storied became unbearable, she told me about Marcus. A wealthy young man, who in all his trials could never get Rose to open up, She admitted all though she loved them each for different reasons, she loved him for the things he would buy her. Roses daily, and the finest chocolates, he spoiled her. She finally allowed him into her heart, something she regretted so, for he was nothing more than pain. His death was on a plane to visit her. Everyone survived but him; it was strange how her kisses worked. I said enough, I no longer wanted to hear of her failures, I wanted to be her life’s success. Over the next seven days I walked outside noticing the ground budding with fresh Roses, and her glory being realized. Papa had been sick for a while, and she had told me days earlier of a death.
On the seventh day we woke early and cooked breakfast for Papa, and went up to his room to give it to him. She seemed more distant than usual today, I knew the death was soon to come. At the tip of the door I stopped, and put his food on the stand in the hallway. I asked her if his death would be quick, and she asked who, with a face so oblivious. I said Papa, is he going to suffer, or will he die without pain. She shed a single tear, and told me that he wouldn’t be the one to die. That day by the lake, she had seen the sins of her future love, all the men who would die for loving her. Then the one she would be willing to die for. I smiled, knowing that she would die for me, and I felt the same way for her. Yet, her tears were not of joy, but of final sorrow. She had met a man she loved with all her heart, and wanted to bare child with. Sadly he wasn’t her Jimmy boy, and she wasn’t my pretty Rose anymore. Her vision that day told her of her lovers fates, and all those who would die before her bodies essence. Men proud to die for this woman they had fallen for, whether they wanted to or not. At that point I realized I was simply another number.
She told me for this lovers curse to end she would have to kiss me one final time, and then it would all be over. Do I allow the one I love to live for another while I die for her? What is life alone, her and I, which is what we would be after all? I, unable to be with her and her unable to ever truly be with the one she loved. I asked, as inquisitive as always, did you see happiness in your future. She said yes, with two children and eternal love. Without any further word I rushed to the kiss, one I had been longing for and one she had also. I realized it was her love for me all those years ago that had driven her away. She knew that I would always love her, and running away would keep me alive. I lived a life of many lovers and even more friends, but only one Rose. I gave Papa his breakfast like I planned and sat on the porch in my rocking chair watching the beautiful roses blow in the breeze. I sat and sat and fell asleep, a slumber in which I would never awaken. While Rose was free to go and love another, with a garden of beauty.
You must always remember a rose is a rose, and a flower is a flower. Roses maintain beauty and grace even upon deaths coldest breath, that is a rose, and so was she.

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 17.03.2010

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