Submitted to: Contest #319

The Unpicked Bloom

Written in response to: "Write a story from the POV/perspective of a non-human character."

Contemporary Sad

They were beautiful, the others.

They stood in the garden like a living chorus, radiant and upright, their petals glowing as though they carried the light of the sun within them. They wore soft shades as if spun from silk, and smelled of what I imagine heaven might.

They twirled in the grass as the guests arrived, each tilt and bend a delicate performance. It's almost as though they had been born for admiration. The guests pointed, gesturing to loved ones to gaze at their beauty too. They all smiled. As if, somehow, just the sight of them released a memory.

You could hear the string quartet tuning in the distance, the notes slipping through the muffled chatter. The air was thick and wet with summer, heavy with the perfume of daffodils. Beside them leaned roses, peonies, lilies...each flower a bloom of her own, standing tall, waiting to be chosen.

I stood among them too. I swayed when the wind offered itself. I drank from the same summer rain. I stretched upward, reaching for the clouds, quietly hoping that someone might reach back for me.

Yet, no one ever did.

I began to wonder if I had ever been a flower at all. Perhaps I was something else. Something smaller, a little less colorful and a little more...greener. A filler, maybe. The kind of stem that was tucked into a bouquet. Not for beauty but for balance. Not chosen for my petals, but to make the others feel brighter.

But I had a flower. I knew I did. The others told me...sometimes with a whisper of petals brushing mine when the breeze moved through us.

Yet, the hands never reached for me. My stem remained uncut. I was not carried into the chapel, not pinned to a lapel close to a beating heart. Not slipped around a wrist where lips might find me in an embrace. No corsage. No boutonnière. No photograph to remember my color, no admirer leaning close to whisper, “This one...this one is perfect.”

Still, I was there.

The others were praised for their petals, their softness, their color, their promise. I was there for volume and for shape. Background to their brilliance. And I began to wonder if that would be all I’d ever be.

Sometimes, though, when the air softened and the day grew still, I could hear the bees. They never came close enough to linger, but I liked to believe they noticed me. That my scent, though faint, reached them. And they would fly around to other flowers and tell them about me. That some small, living thing might find value in my presence. Those moments were fleeting, but they were real, and they gave me comfort.

The wedding came and went. Dresses dragged dirt from the dewy grass. The chosen flowers were carried down the aisle, tucked behind ears, wrapped in ribbons, caught in camera flashes. Toasts were raised, laughter lifted into the summer night, petals scattered on the ground like confetti. The air rang with new names and promises. Time stood still in celebration.

And I remained.

Still rooted. Still reaching.

I told myself that maybe I was spared. Spared from the trampling feet, the tugging hands, the sharp snip that would end me in admiration but shorten my life. But I had also been spared the joy, the celebration, and the choosing.

So I stayed among the baby’s breath, hidden in plain sight.

Time began to shift around me.

The weddings and celebrations slowly stopped. The air grew softer, the trees began to fall asleep. The soil beneath me grew dry. The music faded. The guests left. The sun moved across the sky, steady as ever, but its warmth no longer seemed meant for me. I tilted my head toward it anyway, hopeful out of habit.

But the water no longer came.

No one noticed the change. Not the bees. Not even the wind.

My petals curled inward.

It was not dramatic or sudden. There was no collapse, not even a cry. There was no final moment of grandeur. Just a slow, quiet fading.

I supposed that I began to wilt.

Not from heartbreak, I don’t think, but from being unseen. From being useful but never cherished. Present but never wanted. A background detail in a story that was of the flowers but only the chosen ones.

And I wondered...if a flower blooms in the garden but no one sees it, or picks it, did it ever bloom at all?

Still, I do not regret growing. I do not regret standing there among the chosen, sharing their sun, even if I never shared their spotlight.

There is a quiet kind of beauty in resilience. In staying upright even as the soil dries. In reaching for light you know will never fall on you quite the same way it does on others. The taller. The ones with larger petals. Sturdier stems. The ones everyone remembers by name.

Sometimes I let myself imagine a different ending. Perhaps a child with curious eyes might find me one day, gathering weeds for a small bouquet. A dog’s nose might meet mine and we’d kiss, even just for a moment, my pollen clinging to his wet whiskers. Maybe a gardener, careful and kind, might notice the shape of something still trying, and pause long enough to see me. Not as background, but as something worth picking, worth saving, worth holding.

Or maybe no one will come.

Maybe I will return to the soil unnoticed, my roots settling beside the remnants of petals. Maybe, in time, we all fade back into the same earth. The chosen and the forgotten alike. All one garden.

And maybe, in that silence, there is peace.

But still. A small part of me wishes someone had picked me.

Just once.

Not because I was needed to complete the bouquet. Not because I filled the spaces between the bright colors.

But because they wanted me.

Me, alone.

Posted Sep 11, 2025
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9 likes 2 comments

Kate Torode
21:03 Sep 17, 2025

Absolutely beautiful

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Molly Alderson
12:51 Sep 18, 2025

Thank you so much, Kate!

Reply

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