Of Things That Wilt And Fade

I can still remember it so vividly.

The sky, a shade of grey, dark and disastrous, looming over the little town somewhere of Nebraska as snowflakes fly around like dust in the atmosphere.

My boots, stepping into deep, soft snow. The cold taking over my body, the freezing sensation within me that burns.

Amidst everything that happened, the days that have passed by, the sun that came and went . . . I can still remember it so vividly.

The chattering of my teeth against each other as I walk the pavement going to my house. The subtle shivering of my fingers. The smoke I see in front of me when I exhale.

All of it—all of it—gone. Now.

Today, I woke up with the sky purely white and cloudy . . .

That was the first thing I wrote on my daily journal dated March 21^st. There is nothing much to say, except that I feel ordinary and normal. Maybe, a little comment on how much weight I lost during the cold crisis of winter, but other than that? Nothing really.

I cooked ordinary breakfast. I talked about ordinary things to my ordinary neighbour. I dressed up like the ordinary. Walk with it on ordinary streets, bumping into ordinary people with ordinary lives . . . 

I am okay. I am fine. I am very much capable of standing by myself today and the rest of the days ahead.

To see the flowers bloom in its full beauty. To watch as the colours bring lucid vibrance around this old, little town—slowly and gracefully. To reminisce, really, what spring felt like back in the 80’s when I was still a kid and everything is rainbows and unicorns and tooth fairies.

When I was young, my mother would always take us to spring festivals every first week of spring. You’d see different types of flowers everywhere and it was so beautiful, you could almost cry. My favourite flower in the whole entire world is a rose. There’s just something about a rose. The colour, maybe? The deep, dark redness of it that you could stare at forever. The femininity it contains, the strong endeavour. The irony, really, of having soft, beautiful petals and nasty, thorny stems.

I love it. I have always loved it.

“Rose.”

The whole room lights up when that word is being uttered. Everytime you pronounce it, it rolls off your tongue like butter. It tastes sweet, and it looks sweet.

“Rose, I love you.”

A rose shines and wilts at the same time when you say that. It was just three words, but the rose looks vibrant and full of life when it hears it. She lures you with her beauty to say it again.

Say it again, say it again, say it again . . .

And you say it again.

“Rose, I love you.”

And again.

“Rose, I can’t live without you.”

And again.

“Rose, you’re the only one I have in this whole, entire world.”

It dies in affection—this rose. When you feed it so much love and care, it just looks like it’s melting into a tiny puddle of hope and happiness. It’s such a beautiful sight to see, you couldn’t help but feel euphoric. Ecstatic.

And then, the rose laughs. Its lips forming into a big smile upwards like it’s going to heaven. Its teeth—its beautiful, tiny teeth—showing all around the place with cavities and gum leftovers. Its breath. The smell of cereal and lollipop and me.

In general, when you take care of something over time, it’ll just really start to smell like you. When it’s starting to smell like you, you ought to know it truly belongs to you now.

That rose—that beautiful, happy rose—has been mine since the beginning of time. I have seen other roses before; plenty of roses in the garden and during the spring festival. Roses around town. Roses sitting randomly on the street.

But out of all the roses I have seen and held and cared for, that one particular rose has been the most beautiful rose I have ever had in my life.

It looked like a gem when I first cradled it in my arms. The rose was so tiny and so fragile, I almost don’t know what to do with it. I want to shower it with so much love, but how? I want to show it all the beauty of the world, but how?

How can I take care of such a precious, precious thing?

That thought comes into my mind often everytime I stare at the rose resting. Its eyes are closed, its breathing shallow and slow . . . The rose is resting. And it’s so beautiful even when it’s resting, I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.

How was I ever worthy of having such an exquisite-looking rose?

How was I ever worthy of having one taken away from me?

If there’s one thing in this world that I am certain of, it’s that evil is real. And evil is around us, just below our chins, standing close to us. Closer. Closest.

Nobody cares what you care about. Nobody cares who and what you love. You love a rose? Well, yeah, fuck a rose. You don’t want your rose to get hurt? Well, fuck you then, if that’s the case. I’m going to kill the shit out of your rose.

These hands will grip that rose’s neck. It will trail down that rose’s body, stopping midway into its most intricate and erotic part, savouring the sweetness and pleasure of that rose. These eyes will watch as the rose fights for its life. It will watch as all the hope and the innocence flies away from that rose’s consciousness. These lips will grunt as it forces the rose to die. To wilt and wither. Its petals darkening, its beauty, its soul, flying away.

And the rose leaves me. The rose leaves without saying one bit of goodbye. The rose vanishes and disappears from this world forever. On the first day of spring; when flowers are just supposed to bloom and emerge from the ground. My baby, my rose, sank six feet under.

And the agony, the pain, the sadness of that thing . . . will always remind me of the sky purely white and cloudy.