The Blue Rose
The Blue Rose (First published on Blue Monster)
The young man had a dream and that dream was to breed the most exquisite rose on the surface of the Earth. He was fortunate in that he was a young man of means in a large house, in a time when such horticultural exploits were seen as a constructive thing for young men to do, like becoming a vicar or sailing to foreign parts.
He had always found religion wishy washy and he became seasick in a horse and cart so the other two options were out. His Aunt Pieter happened to be an award winning flower breeder and he had sat avidly at her knee through his otherwise uneventful and neglected childhood.
And so for his 21st he had requested the correct set-up and he was away. That young man strove and produced many beautiful blooms which adorned the gardens throughout Europe but the elusive blue remained stubbornly out of his reach and he grew older and older.
At some point he had given thought to family and had sought out young ladies but they never seemed to engage him and he had withered under their blank stares. One or two had exclaimed over the roses in the greenhouses and he had almost married one frail thing who had pronounced a desire to have a garden festooned with different roses but alas consumption had carried her away and his roses had covered her grave instead of the garden she had coveted.
Thoughts of family and that sort of thing died with her and his only passion had remained the roses and so he grew even older. And now the young man had become ancient, 87 to be precise and he pottered, watering the last experiment, his hands too gnarled to do any of the delicate work. It had not yet bloomed and he felt his life drawing to a close. There was one small bud covered in green. He noticed it and gingerly touched it, sighed, coughed and went back into the house.
And so he never saw his blue bloom, though it was placed upon his own grave several weeks later after a swift pneumonia had taken him.
Posted: Thursday, November 3rd, 2011 @ 8:37 am
Categories: Flash Fiction.
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