My Own Inheritance

The rose garden outside of my home was planted at my birth. At first I hardly regarded it, seeing it as only another bush, another flower, belonging to the property. But as I grew, so did it. What was once small and hidden became unkempt and gangly, reaching ever higher. However, despite its maturity, the roses never bloomed. They mocked the rest of the garden from their mount, as well as any travellers who dared to gaze their way.  The other flowers weren’t roses like them I suppose. Yet even then, I’d walk up to the roses on a few separate occasions and they would hardly deign to look my way. I decided I did not like the roses. The bushes would claw at your body as you passed. They claimed the land, and your clothing, becoming knotted and rotted and festered with many lost things. The roses began to choke out any other flowers attempting to settle in its territory, offering  no purchase, and allowing for no innocent bystanders. They continued to grow taller even as their trunks were plagued. And yet, the incorrigible morning dew would still collect on its leaves in great amounts. However, upon fanciful tastings, the water would always be bitter or sour, or generally detestable. After I had grown, I went into the yard and killed the roses. 

I chopped, and I picked, and I sawed, and I kicked and I screamed from my belly as I wrested root after root from the marrow ground. I did not count the punctures or the stabs and I did not look at all the blood that had settled in the land at its death because the land was again mine as the roses had been and then weren’t. And then weren’t. 

Winter came and hardly passed to say hello to Spring when I first noticed it. The snow hadn’t even melted and yet it was there. A single rose bloom, standing still on a single stalk, as if sowed within the snow. The rose did not seem to bother the cold, and nor the other way around. The rose was still a rose, and winter had still been winter, and the rose was still stuck amongst the snow and the snow had not thought of melting, but a droplet of dew had appeared on the burgeoning cusp of the lowermost petal. The flower was scarlet, and purple, and also a peculiar pigment of pink. But mostly I believe it was mauve. Its colour was reminiscent of a childhood bruise one gets by falling off a swing. I went to pick the flower to taste the dew that was clinging to the crisp cusp of that lowermost petal. In the process, I pricked my finger on a thorn that had sprouted from the spindly stalk. A droplet of blood fell onto the snow and painted it a promise. I tasted the dew; it was sweet- sickly so. I left and came back and poured vinegar on the rest of the stem. The dead should stay dead.

The next morning as I passed the garden of snow, three single stalks that were each crowned with a rose had decided to hold a banquet within the winter field. The leftmost stalk was the same colour as a promise. Like the flower from the day prior, a plight of dew had become affixed to the center. This droplet tasted the same as a firm right hook to the jaw and left me on the ground. The rightmost bloom was a purple that could only be described as having the composure of a thunderstorm. I knew this stock would soon become a rampant menace if given the opportunity. And yet, as I noticed another enticing font of Phosphoric liquid I couldn’t help myself but to draw it upon my lips. It tasted salty, as though it were a gift from Poseidon. I don’t know how to swim. The last rose in the center was taller than the other two, and upon my gaze, had instantly announced with an arrogant austerity that it was better. Better than the snow from which it grew, better than the garden that housed its roots, and better than the rules of when a rose ought to be a rose. The petals made the snow still falling on the ground look like tar. Again, much alike to its three predecessors, dew was ringed along the petals, clinging with fragility to an already encumbered precipice. I leant forward and tasted the dew, as seemed to be my inclination, and it was water. It had no scent, no texture, no flavour or tincture- it was simply dew. 

I cut the stalks of the leftmost and the rightmost, and allowed the monarchical center flower reign. Who was I to dethrone royalty? The next day, Spring laid Winter down to rest and the field of white had left. The pearlescent stalk still stood the next day, and it continued to stand as the days went on. The stalk became a shrub, and then a bush, and it continued to spread and grow until it filled the plot the roses before had ignored. The kingdom borders were drawn and respected, and neither ill will or malevolence would be caught trespassing. 

As the weather warmed further I sat beneath the rose to read. Its mass painted shade onto the lawn, stifling the heat before it tempted me to leave with it, and the opalic blooms drifted lightly in the breeze. The blossoms would look down at me, and at the pages I read, but no longer with superiority. I closed the book and regarded the tallest crown, the one that had established its prominence in the blinding of the snow. It seemed to have forgotten that it wasn’t supposed to continue blooming forever. It never did care about rules I suppose. Every now and then I go to the roses in the morning in search of the dawning ichor, but I have never found it again. Perhaps the roses have ignored the rules of sunrise and sunfall as well. But still my mind drifts to that cold day, when I tasted water and it was anything but.