Through Rose Tinted Glass

Rose Faith Tinderwall never knew her past. She was a young orphan and the age of twelve. She was going through her very basic and normal day, strolling through the barren almost always empty streets, when an old man fell right in front of her.

She rushed to his side, helping him up. "Sir, are you okay?"She asked, worried. "Yes kind girl, I am fine."He said, dusting off his brown pants. Rose inspected the man, he was very old and very wrinkly but he had a warmness to him that she couldn’t quite touch. The man smiled and continued on his way.

Rose, since she had nothing to do or anything to hurry off to, helped him to his destination, the bakery. "Thank you very much, kind girl, what's your name?"He asked. "Rose," She answered. "Rose. I like that name, it's very pretty. Well, to show my gratitude for your help I will give you a gift. How about some sunglasses?" He said, heartily. "Sure."Rose shrugged, she wasn't sure that a gift was needed, she was just trying to be kind, but the old man fumbled with his old woolen coat and he pulled out a small brown package. "Here you go."He chuckled. Then he took his old chiseled cane and walked into the delicious smelling bakery before Rose could even say thank you to him. 

She slowly unfolded the rough brown package, her slim fingers peeling apart the fragile wrapping paper. Laying inside the package was a golden glasses case. She slowly opened it, finding her fingers trembling for some reason. She peeked in and beheld a gorgeous pair of sunglasses, with a beautiful shiny golden frame and rose-tinted lenses. Her slim fingers picked them up, trembling more than before, but why she didn't understand. She made sure to not touch the rose-tinted lenses as she raised them up.

She unfolded the golden glasses and slipped them on. It was like an entirely new world. It was all tinted rose. She leaned them back onto her forehead as she strolled back home to her adopted parents. Charity and Karl Christensen were rich and lived in a small mansion, they were also the adoptive parents of Rose Tinderwall.

Rose opened the door. "Hello, Rose." Charity Christensen hollered from their giant kitchen. "Did you have a good stroll?" "Yes, thank you Charity." Rose and Charity never called each other anything other than their names, and they liked it that way. Rose hopped up the stairs, her red hair frizzing up. She got up to the room that she slept in, she wouldn't call it "her" room, because it wasn't hers, not yet anyway, it had belonged to Charity and Karl's daughter who died and Rose couldn't for the life of her bring herself to change it to be hers.

She took her leather sandals off and laid them next to the closed door. She opened her favorite book and out fell a picture, her only picture of her parents. She leaned over to pick it up and perhaps she was leaning too much because the glasses fell off her head and onto her nose. Not thinking about it, she looked down at the picture.

It was a weird sensation, like getting sucked into a whirlpool and going through a paper press then coming out perfectly fine. Rose landed in a dark alley. The moon was a bright full moon and hung up in the dark blue sky like a lantern. Rose was confused, the full moon wasn't till 2 weeks. And how in the world did she get here? She looked around till she saw a lady and a man. They were quaking on the ground.

Rose looked more and saw a large cloaked man towering over them, with a shotgun pointed at their heads. Suddenly Rose recognized the two adults cowering at the shotgun. It was her parents, she could tell from her picture of them. Rose's father stood up. He was talking but she couldn't tell over the loud gunshot that rang out as the large man in a cloak shot him. Rose's father fell to the ground, making a loud clump. And now Rose could hear crying. She looked closer and saw a baby crying in her mother's arms and realized that was her, as a baby. The man reloaded his gun and Rose heard her mother whimper"Please no." But the man raised his black shotgun and shot. As Rose's mother fell to the ground the man turned swiftly and left the crying baby Rose on the ground. There were loud sirens but Rose didn’t care, there was a loud pounding sound in her head as she realized what just happened in front of her.

Rose screamed out, her voice loud enough to shatter any glass in a ten-yard radius but she was stopped by another weird sensation of going through a berry press or entering a tornado. She landed back in the bedroom that wasn’t hers. She heaved a large, heavy, mournful sigh and ripped off the golden glasses. She started to cry into her pillow. Her parents had been murdered and there was nothing she could do about it.

Soon though, stopping her endless tears Charity came up to the bedroom. “Rose, are you alright?” She asked. “Ya, mom,” Rose answered, not noticing that she called Charity mom, but Charity actually didn’t mind, she actually felt complimented by young Rose calling her mom. “Okay, dinner is ready, come downstairs when you are ready.” She whispered into her ear. 

I don’t think Rose would have been able to get herself to move from where she was if not for Charity’s interference. But she mustered enough energy to get up. And then she folded the golden glasses and put them in their exquisite case. Rose went to dinner that night and ate like there was nothing different about her. But it was all different. After many years Rose Faith Tinderwall adjusted to this new pain, but there were still scars, scars that would last an eternity.