Rose Tinted

I don’t know how long I’ve been here. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here for. Maybe this is it, my tiny universe, and I’m the only planet. A lonely, dying planet, on the brink of extinction from this desolate existence. I orbit, spinning and spinning for all eternity, lost and confused, knowing nothing, knowing no one. Unable to recall anything but the confines of my own mind.

I’ve been here, I think, since I was a child. Maybe since I was born. Bright new eyes searching in the darkness, finding nothing but the walls that confine me. I would have had come here later, though, wouldn’t I? To know how desolate and lonely I am, I must’ve had something to compare it to, no? I don’t know where I am, I don’t know what lies outside, but I know I will never taste that freedom, that I could never escape but in death.

It is not all dreary, I think. Sometimes there is sound. It reminds me there’s more to my little universe than the floor and walls. There is a door somewhere, I think, but it does not open. It never opens. There are voices, always voices. Sometimes they talk about someone I do not know. Sometimes I wonder if he is me. I do not know if the voices belong to people. I imagine them to be great beasts, chattering in an unknown tongue, each lost to their own universe, as I am.

Everything changes, and yet everything is always the same. The voices will stay behind the door, but only if I can find it. I have to listen very closely, forever straining, pressing myself against the barrier or I will miss what they are saying. They are my blanket, and all I have to comfort myself in the long days and nights spanning long months and years.

Maybe I’m right, and I was a child here, making the voices the ones to teach me to speak. To think, rather. To speak leaves my throat dry and raw, so I do not talk so much anymore. All I could muster was a strangled groan, a call the voices returned with anger. I do not mind my silence much, for why would I need to speak? I have all the noise I need. I do not know how long I have been here, and I do not know how much longer I will stay, but it must have been many years, for my body has grown and changed. I am dying, I think. Or ageing, at least. I can feel my bones against my skin, clawing to escape like thorns from the stalks of roses.

I remember the roses. I see them in my dreams, when I fall unconscious and my body collapses beneath me. Sweet smelling roses, freshly bloomed. I do not know who I saw them with, if any, or when I would have, but I must’ve, at some point or other. By autumn they would rot, their beckoning scent turned putrid, much like my home, by the sands of time. Eaten by worms and many legged creatures, as we all will be, time permitting. 

My stomach growls now, but it always hungers like a starved and desperate beast. I haven’t been able to stand for some time, my limbs weak and shaking like a fawn its first spring. Spring. The roses had bloomed in spring, as everything does. Maybe I am a rose, velvety petals crowning me beauty in the garden. A dazzling ruby in a sea of jade and emerald, fresh mists that rains like diamonds. But I have been picked, my petals stale and crumbled and gray, I have no more tears to nourish my roots, and without the warm embrace of the sun and morning dew to allow for growth and the strength to surge through my body again. I saw that heaven once.

The voices are near again. My stomach guides my feet towards the wall, and I find the cold metallic door that has teased me for eternity. I let it do so, drunk on the momentary sliver of hope. I scratch at the surface, my throat releasing a strangled groan. I beg for their pity, their mercy, their food. This metal dungeon is small and cramped, my lungs denied the gift of fresh clean air, my thoughts always turning to the roses. 

God, the roses. I grow ever desperate to see them again. I pace now, back and forth, back and forth, singing, raspy and quiet. The voices feel so close now, so familiar. I hear them in my dreams too. And when I close my eyes. They’re there in the darkness that surrounds me. They are my one sweet life boat in this suffocating void I’m imprisoned in. The voices draw closer, than far, so many overlapping and echoing, muffled by the time they reach me.

The darkness is lifted, unearthing me at last, and I am blinded in the face of these holy suns. It came back to me, this demented Nirvana I am forced upon, and God’s delicate hands have opened my prison of shadow. Her voice sings to me now, in words I have only perceived in fantasies of a Utopian past, one without hunger, without pain. She sings now, so bright and clear.

Hands reaching towards me, she coos and strokes me, bringing me towards her now. The light shines and glimmers upon my opalescent feathers, and I burrow into the crook of her arm. She is warm, she is paradise. My God embraces me, giving me seed and water. My legs shake, stretching straight and aching, but only for a moment. I stand once again, the first time in eons. 

“Poor Polly,” She crows, clicking at me lovingly, and I click back. “All alone in your tired old cage. Why don’t I keep you in my room from now on? I’m sure Mother and Father wouldn’t mind. You can face the garden. I know you’re terribly fond of the roses.”

I sit there now, perched on her windowsill, smelling the roses. Their perfume lulls me to sleep, the spring air rocking me gently.

This is all I wanted. This is all I ever wanted.