Today – as if left over from a dream - I found a beautiful flower. It was already picked and just waiting to be loved a second time. It looked like a rose but a rose without thorns. It had soft petals, but many of them, row after over lapping row. It had a sweet scent, but hidden within its coloured pleats; like a ballerina hidden within the folds of her intricate tutu. I stroked the flower, and brushed its smoothness against my dry flesh. Its touch felt strange to my skin – almost too soft and too tender.
I felt sad to waste the beautiful flower. I wished that somehow I could preserve the flower, to take it home with me and to look at it every day and to smell it every day. But even as I thought these thoughts, the flower did what was natural – for without its roots and without the life force of the water and soil it had already began to fade. In my hands its soft petals were too delicate to last; the petals were already turning outwards, as if making a final bow to a mesmorised audience after an incredible performance. I felt sad to think of the flower starting to wilt and then to disintegrate and then to disappear.
As I was thinking these thoughts I felt a pair of eyes staring into me. I looked up to see an old and wrinkled lady smile - at me. Her face was creased upon itself, her brown eyes peeking first through her sunken face and then through a pair of crooked specs. Her hair white like snow, and her golden nose stud looking too large for her shrunken nose. I thought I knew the lady but I couldn't quite place her face; that is until I saw her hands – her hands which were not there – the hands of a leper.
The old ladies fingers had been eaten, along with her toes, and part of her feet. As she smiled at me, she was still being eaten – and this was how I recognised her. The old lady with eaten fingers and eaten toes was a beggar from the side of the road. But now she was not begging, she was simply smiling at me as I stared at the beautiful flower.
As instinctively as I had felt her eyes look into me, I found my arms reaching towards her, passing the beautiful flower into her hands without fingers. The old ladies smile spread across her face. The old lady with eaten fingers and eaten toes stopped staring at me, and instead she turned her attention to the delicate petals she was trying to balance in her hands without fingers.
Now it was my turn to watch her become mersmorised by the beauty of the rose. I watched as she brought the flower to her nose, but the old lady didn't stop to smell the sweet scent. Instead the old lady with no fingers and no toes took a bite out of the flower. She smiled at the flower which was half in her mouth and half in her eaten palms. She chewed its petals as if it were a succulent fruit and when she had finished chewing she bowed her head to take another bite.
I smiled, and then I laughed, and then I thought how perfect that the rose without thorns - with petals so smooth and so soft, with a colour so deep, and a scent so sweet - should not be wasted, and certainly never forgotten.
I felt sad to waste the beautiful flower. I wished that somehow I could preserve the flower, to take it home with me and to look at it every day and to smell it every day. But even as I thought these thoughts, the flower did what was natural – for without its roots and without the life force of the water and soil it had already began to fade. In my hands its soft petals were too delicate to last; the petals were already turning outwards, as if making a final bow to a mesmorised audience after an incredible performance. I felt sad to think of the flower starting to wilt and then to disintegrate and then to disappear.
As I was thinking these thoughts I felt a pair of eyes staring into me. I looked up to see an old and wrinkled lady smile - at me. Her face was creased upon itself, her brown eyes peeking first through her sunken face and then through a pair of crooked specs. Her hair white like snow, and her golden nose stud looking too large for her shrunken nose. I thought I knew the lady but I couldn't quite place her face; that is until I saw her hands – her hands which were not there – the hands of a leper.
The old ladies fingers had been eaten, along with her toes, and part of her feet. As she smiled at me, she was still being eaten – and this was how I recognised her. The old lady with eaten fingers and eaten toes was a beggar from the side of the road. But now she was not begging, she was simply smiling at me as I stared at the beautiful flower.
As instinctively as I had felt her eyes look into me, I found my arms reaching towards her, passing the beautiful flower into her hands without fingers. The old ladies smile spread across her face. The old lady with eaten fingers and eaten toes stopped staring at me, and instead she turned her attention to the delicate petals she was trying to balance in her hands without fingers.
Now it was my turn to watch her become mersmorised by the beauty of the rose. I watched as she brought the flower to her nose, but the old lady didn't stop to smell the sweet scent. Instead the old lady with no fingers and no toes took a bite out of the flower. She smiled at the flower which was half in her mouth and half in her eaten palms. She chewed its petals as if it were a succulent fruit and when she had finished chewing she bowed her head to take another bite.
I smiled, and then I laughed, and then I thought how perfect that the rose without thorns - with petals so smooth and so soft, with a colour so deep, and a scent so sweet - should not be wasted, and certainly never forgotten.
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