Where the wild roses grow

[Letti]

And one of my short stories.
Enjoy it dear Traveller. And thank you for your time.


The Black Rose

We used to have a beautiful garden. There were a thousand kinds of flowers blooming in it. The rainbow could hide in our garden if it liked as everything was so colourful. The only reason it did not become famous was its size: it was too small. At that time we lived in a very small house in the heart of the city. We had nothing else but that little house and the even smaller garden.
Many people from the neighbourhood came to admire our garden and perhaps the fact that our house was not demolished and we were not moved to some junk old flat was thanks to it. However, it was not only the garden... Our house was so small that had it been pulled down, nothing else could have been built in its place. We were as lost among the huge tower blocks as a pansy in an oak wood.
Whatever was going on around us, our garden was alive and the ones who saw it could say it liked living.
We did not have any favourite flowers or trees, we love them all the same.. We talked to one plant just as much as to the other and we tried to take the same care of each. Sensitive flowers were paid nice compliments and the cheeky ones were told jokes.
Roses were the best to talk to. You did not have to compliment them, stroke their petals or tell them jokes. They preferred people's stories. They loved listening to people.. Whoever went up to them was listened to by them and they smiled or showed their sadness by swinging their petals.
They were no gossips, what had once been whispered to their ears was a closely-guarded secret, locked deep inside their petals. That is what I loved about them the best.
One day when I wanted to share my last night's dream with them, a great surprise was waiting for me. It was a black rose.
There are no black roses, are there? Nature cannot afford to create a black rose as the other roses would not accept it as their brother or sister and butterflies would not think it to be their home. Nature may have got very tired if she has forgotten about even a single flower, particularly when it is a rose.
I went up to it and admired it. I was looking at it for a long time in case it was dark blue... no, the rose was black. And no one got talking to it. The other flowers turned their silky faces away from it and pretended not to take notice of the black rose... and I guess they really did not see it.

We never made friends. It never talked to me and I never talked to it. I was afraid of It. I did not want it to tell me about its sorrow, to tell me about the world outside the garden. I could not really become fond of it, either... it was such an ugly little one... but besides, it was special as well. It hid in itself every night and it blossomed every morning although the Sun never rose for It.
One day a passer-by saw It. He started screeching at once and rang the bell. He wanted to see the flower more closely. First I was reluctant to let the stranger in but he was pleading for such a long time that eventually I said yes.
He turned out to be some great scientist and that said science badly needed that little flower. They had to find out if the rose was really black and if so what made it black.
He was speaking a strange language, a kind of gobbledygook, I could hardly understand every second word. All I could certainly understand was that he wanted to take the whole rosebush, root and branch, away to start his all-important research of it.
I looked at the roses and They looked back at me.. None of them understood what was there brewing, only the black rose. It was the first time I had seen emotions on its face: wrath was dancing on its wrinkled petals.
We let the scientists take our rosebush away. Nothing but black soil will remain in its place... We had to give it to them. We knew it very well: had the rose not been given to them, they would have resorted to violence. And in a fight like that it might be considered there is no space for our tiny little house in the centre of town any more... we could have become heroes defending roses but we preferred to remain ordinary people with a roof over our heads.

The rose was really black. It was pointed out by the very first experiments. That even more threw the scientist's folk into a fever and they were doing research intensively day and night. At the beginning they made sure that the rose should feel fine and stay alive but later even their minor questions were more important than the flower.
They started examining its petals, one by one. Eventually, all of them were torn off.
Will there anything be left of a rose if it loses its petals? It will be alive until it has a last petal: torn and trembling, it is still alive. When it loses its last petal, there is no rose anymore.

The petals ran out, my rose died. It was never found out what had made it black.
But science can state: black roses do exist.
There used to live one, once it existed for me.

[OchrisO]

I really like this. I, myself, find short stories difficult to write. I have trouble condensing any of my ideas down to an effective short story.

Maybe I am looking into ot too much, but I see a lot of symbolism regarding love in this part:
"Will there anything be left of a rose if it loses its petals? It will be alive until it has a last petal: torn and trembling, it is still alive. When it loses its last petal, there is no rose anymore."

If so, I really like that.

[Letti]

1. I really like this. I, myself, find short stories difficult to write. I have trouble condensing any of my ideas down to an effective short story.

2. Maybe I am looking into ot too much, but I see a lot of symbolism regarding love in this part:
"Will there anything be left of a rose if it loses its petals? It will be alive until it has a last petal: torn and trembling, it is still alive. When it loses its last petal, there is no rose anymore."

If so, I really like that.

1. I can write only short stories. I wouldn't be able to write a whole novel. Oh no. Impossible.
But I love writing short stories.
That's another world when I am writing..

2. It's good to know you have found such things in it. For me it seems to be a real story as if it had happened to me.. so it's full of facts for me.
If you find symbolism in it I am glad.

Thank you for your time.

[John Blaze]

great story Love, i hope you post more.

[Letti]

great story Love, i hope you post more.

For your sake I will.
With pleasure.

[Letti]

A tiny village

There was a small village lying among the mountains, not known exactly where.. The people in that village had a very hard life as among the huge mountains they were left to their own resources, being quite unable to get in touch with the outside world.
When something ran out, it could not be found anywhere in the village. When something broke down and there was noone to repair it, the thing was left like that. However, that occured quite rarely as being isolated from the world, each villager tried to be skilled in something. A There were a few streams flowing across the village. What is more, there were tiny little lakes around the village as well as a wee wood, so the inhabitants were not really in want of anything.
However, they had to work very hard not to be in short of anything even when lots of children were born and for the old to survive. The villagers did not really have machines so they had to produce everything by their own hands. They lived like those untouched by the cold hand of the new world.
Even that would not have raised a real problem but noone knows how: an epidemic broke out in the village. Only children died of the disease but they passed away slowly, in horrible pain. No child was left in the village in a year and as the children's hearty laughter was disappearing, so was the only church becoming more and more empty.
The people lost their faith and they might have been right. The priest went to the water-mill to work as a mill-hand. The church door was closed, the cross was broken from the top and was thrown into a deep well.
Everything changed. Children were not growing any more, and the wind was not telling stories to the ears of wheat about remote lands. Children were not playing hide-and-seek in the wood and the wood did not invite the sunshine to play hide-and-go-seek. The tiny village turned grave and instead of wearing its bright colours, borrowed the black robe of the night, not wanting to return it any more.

Once a severe winter arose. Winters had been chilly before but that winter was really most horrible. Not only was it cold and dreadful but it also heaped a flurry of snow on the village which almost covered the small cottages.
Nevertheless, winter not only brought cold but a little boy as well who had very strange ears. He had such big ears that they rather looked like shovels which could as well have been used for removing the snow from the whole village. He arrived in the village with nothing but a tiny coat on him as well as boots letting in water.
There among the mountains, the tiny wanderer was happy to see the cheerful houses for he surely knew he could warm himself inside, he could be saved.
Unfortunately he was mistaken. Wherever he rang the bell, noone came to open the door for him. However, they saw it was Him standing there. They looked out of the window but they pulled the curtain back as if nothing had happened. In each house someone else was supposed to let the strange little newcomer in.
Everyone thought so.
The little boy found shelter in the church, he climbed in through a window that had been broken for ages. He had enough space to get through as he was nothing but skin and bone.
Although it was terribly cold in the church, he found shelter between the seats and was happy to turn in.

The next day the village awoke to a beautiful day. Although it was still very cold, the snowstorm had ridden on among the mountains and the sunshine was tickling the people’s noses.
The young and old of the village gathered together for a gossip to find out who had housed the young boy that asked for help in such a clumsy way the night before. He might never ever have set foot in the village...
”Look,” a beautiful dark girl cried out,. ”Look at these tiny footprints in the snow.” ”They lead to the church.”
Everyone was puzzled how the footprints could be preserved after such a big snowstorm, but there was no time for discussion. Everybody hurried to the church.
After so many years its padlock was wrenched off and its door was opened wide.
There was the little boy sleeping like a cocoon a butterfly would creep out from. His face was whiter and cleaner than pure snow. He was sleeping and had a dream he did not fancy waking up from any more.

The old cross of the church was drawn out of the well and it was stood to the little boy’s grave. Every villager put a flower on the grave, the most beautiful treasure from each garden.
The church was re-opened, and the priest gave up his job at the water-mill. The building was painted and a new cross was erected on the top. A new door was installed as well as new windows. Only one window was not removed. The very window the little boy had climbed in through was left broken. Should his soul come back to the church to warm himself, let him get in easily.
Perhaps he comes back every now and then as we are all looking forward to His coming.

[John Blaze]

Letti, this is beautiful. Thank you.

[Matt]

I finally got a chance to read the first one and I love it. I was kind of like Chris in that I imagined the Rose as a symbol for love. Innocent and open but destroyed through too much examination.

The descriptions were also great, these two below in particular


We were as lost among the huge tower blocks as a pansy in an oak wood.

Whatever was going on around us, our garden was alive and the ones who saw it could say it liked living.

Can't wait to read the other one. I love "no trainee" days :D

[Hannah]

I really like both stories. They're both very simply written, with a good moral behind them. I like a story that makes me feel something. Both of them made me feel a little sad and a little happy at the same time.

[Candice Dionysus]

Darling, this is my problem.
I love your work, and its amazing.
But when I read other peoples work, I never know how to express my feelings.
Not properly, it would seem.
Your story is amazing, sweetheart.

[Frunobulax]

I think I remember reading these at DT.net and loving them. It's nice to rediscover them and love them all over again, Letti. Thumbs up.

[Letti]

Uhh guys you made me totally speechless. :blush: Thanks a lot.

[Jon]

I LOVE the personification in "The Black Rose."


Personification is not easy to do well and you did VERY well.

As wordslingers go, dear angel, you are a howitzer.

An odd compliment I know, but I mean it.

[ManOfWesternesse]

I remember these fondly too from .NET - both stories are beautiful Letti and it's great to read them again.
You should also post the 'Pink Pony' one here if you have not already done so!

[Letti]

I remember these fondly too from .NET - both stories are beautiful Letti and it's great to read them again.
You should also post the 'Pink Pony' one here if you have not already done so!

Oh man do you remember them? Wow.. incredible.. Okay. I will send that one with pleasure as well. :rose:

[Letti]

The Pink Pony

I had a classmate, she was called Anna. She was called Anna Lovely although I had never seen her to be lovely. Only boredom was sparkling in her brown eyes, and not even the wind liked playing with her black hair. It tousled other girls' hair, frisking every one of their hairs but left Anna Lovely's hair unmoved.
She had as many clothes as the other girls did not even dare to dream of. She was often given new pieces and when she was wearing a new one, she was walking even more proudly than before.
She was not given a low mark even when she could not answer the teacher's question. She was never scolded for drawing pictures during the lesson. If it was me drawing even a tiny flower in the corner of my exercise book, I had to copy all the notes in a new one for the next day. For lunch, she was given a bigger portion than anyone else in the school although very often she did not eat half of it.
However, she did not have a single friend except a hand-carved, pink-coloured pony, which she was always carrying with herself. She was also talking to it and then we always mocked her for that, but in two minutes the teacher made us stand in the corner as a kind of punishment. And then she was laughing at us, together with her ugly horse.

One day she fell out with the girl I had been courting foolishly over whose hair was more beautiful.. They had been shouting at each other till they started to fight and they were pulling each other's hair that it was horrible even to see.
As soon as the teacher saw the two brawlers, parted them and of course, punished Dorothy. She asked her to go up into our classroom and write "I'm not going to be silly again" on the blackboard as many times as to fill up all the space on it.
Dorothy went up, sobbing. I was angry with the teacher and hated Anna. I thought her to be terribly ugly and I would have preferred to beat her up. And she was just standing there laughing, all his tiny teeth were showing and so was her long snake-tongue as well.
Suddenly I bobbed up in front of her, tore her small, skinny horse out of her hand and I was jumping about on it until it broke into little pieces.
I stopped jumping about and looked at Anna. She was just standing, looking at her horse and tears were coming into her eyes. I did not regret what I had done and I was praying that she should start crying for me to see her tears at last.. I wanted her to be stamping on her feet so that I could hate her even more.
But Anna was not stamping on her feet, it was only her tears falling. She crouched down to the pony and began to collect the tiny pieces together. Suddenly she looked very small. Her dress did not seem to be new, either... it occured to me that I had seen her wearing it before... she was wearing her hair in a plait, but the wind was..., yes... it was playing with a few of her hairs... suddenly she became small and beautiful.
The world had changed in a flash.
I saw the pink splinters as beautiful, tiny beads.
I couched down to help Anna but I was just crouching beside her, I did not dare to touch the beads.

Anna did not tell the teacher what I had done: she did not relieve my soul, I was not even given any kind punishment. She did not tell anyone.
A few days had passed and I did not do anything. We looked at each other a lot and her eyes did no longer seem empty to me. She had beautiful eyes with loneliness hiding behind them.
In all my spare moments I was thinking about how to give her anything that could compensate her for the pony but I very well knew there was nothing like that in the world. That I could only realise when one day she came to school wearing her hair let down. That was the very day I fell in love with her.

A few years had passed and I did not leave her alone any more. I have carved a little wooden pony for Her, painted it pink and it looks nearly the same as the one I once broke. Still, she is not carrying it with herself.
It is lying on the shelf above her bed, watching us both from there.

[Letti]

And I know I shouldn't write such a thing as this one but this is my forever favourite one:

Robert

I do not think I was more than six years old when we moved there. They had been living there for a couple of years then and being very friendly and kind to us, they were the very ones to show us round the neighbourhood. I myself also loved hanging around in their house. Their house was full of secrets and adventures. Porcelain and marble figures with shiny faces were standing on all the shelves strictly guarded from the touch of visitors. Although then I found them beautiful and exciting, it could have been a nightmare for Robert to live amongst them. Whichever way he went around in the house, all his movements were being followed by cold eyes.

When I was a young girl, Robert meant everything to me. I did not love him as a man though many of my peers were mocking me of being in love with him and my parents were really worried about that for me. To be honest, he was a kind of second father to me. A father who was always smiling, who was always happy to see me and who was preserving every one of my drawings at the bottom of a drawer.
I wanted to spend all my spare time I had with him. Sadly, we could spend very little time together. My parents did not let me pop round his place too often. They did not want me to dote on him all the time. What is more, they were ashamed of me so much sticking with a ”stranger”.
He was not a stranger to me. I took him deep into my heart when we had first met. It was that we happened to be invited to a ”new neighbour’s” dinner party at their house. Mom had put a dress on me that made me feel horrible. It was too tight and frilly everywhere. I could not even sit comfortably.
When I got bored with their conversation (at that time Robert was nothing but just another boring adult to me), I started my expedition inside their house.
When I caught sight of the little porcelain angel on one of the shelves, I was so badly tempted to touch it for at least one quick second. I had to stand tiptoe only a little bit so as to reach it. It was so beautiful. I was turning it in my hands, stroked its face, whispered it into its ears how delightful its eyes were. I was just about to put it back in its place carefully when Maria, Robert’s wife appeared at the other end of the room and sobbing and crying out to me, she said for God’s sake I should not drop the little angel. At that very moment it fell out of my hands and giving an enormous knock on the floor, it broke into three larger pieces.
At that time both of us were crying already. My parents were flooding apologies, paying no heed to me. My Dad was the first one to come up with the right solution. He grabbed my shoulder and loudly said we would smoothly pay the damage from my pocket-money.
I do not know where Robert had been till then, I guess he was collecting strength in the other room, but when he entered, he stepped up to me and crouched beside me and said there was nothing wrong. He said no one had to pay the damage as he had a small workshop down there, near the garage and he himself and me would repair the angel there together as it had broken into only three bigger pieces.
After these nice words his wife looked at him with such deep hatred as I could not even conceive then. She was shouting in a fury and said it would never be the same as before.
Robert collected the porcelain pieces, held my hand and told my parents smiling that we would go into the workshop and sort everything out in two together. My parents gave a sigh of relief. Even my Mum came round from her sudden fright and she smiled and said yeah I should go with Robert and help him.

Robert’s workshop was small and homely. I sat down on an old case and watched him giving the porcelain angel life all along. In the meantime he was talking to me in a gentle tone. He said he had also broken a few porcelain figures already and the very reason to build that little workshop was for him to be able to repair them. He also told me not to be afraid of his wife because she never behaved that way only if there was something wrong with her figures and basically she was a very nice person. And that she would forget the whole thing by the next day.
Concerning this, Robert was almost right - there was only one other time that I saw Maria in that condition. Anyway, she was always a kind, smiling, lovely woman. Now I know as well that I saw her true self only two times.
Robert also said that the dress I was wearing was very nice but he thought I was a bit overdressed. He meant to make me laugh but with not much success. I felt awfully ashamed.
I did not say a word all along, I was only looking in front of me and admired him putting the broken pieces together carefully. When he completed the job, he gave the angel into my hand. I was holding it as gently as if a new born chick had been hiding in my palms. And indeed, not even the cracks could be seen. And still, I sadly said that its eyes were not as cheerful as before. And he answered: ”It is just because she has had to realise that it is not her who has the most beautiful face in the world.”, and saying so he winked at me.

When we were together, everything was miraculous and no sorrow or distressed existed. We played pillow fight, oh how many times! That was real freedom! When Maria was outdoors, Robert took every opportunity to get me into some kind of mischievous game. We also had a chocolate eating competition or played hide-and-seek. I always told Mum and Dad about our adventures together with admiration but they considered most of my stories as a play of my imagination. They had an image of Robert as a determined man who – though being fond of children, especially of me – was still a serious adult.
But even his face looked like a child’s face. The fact that he was over forty could have only been told by his hands. Now that I remember him, I could only recall his hands exactly but with all their tiny curves and lines. Maybe I could even draw a picture of them.
I might have been his only friend. After work he made straight for home, I knew it by the minute what time I had to stand at the gate to be given a kiss or a hug by him. We never missed that.
Everyone felt envious of him and his wife for living in such a harmonious relationship and for Maria’s adoration of him. When they were walking down the street, Maria was gripping his hand tight all the way long and if another woman appeared within a distance of a hundred meters, she was holding him tighter, pulled him to herself even more, hugging and kissing him, kissing him wherever her mouth could reach. Of course, for other people it seemed as lovers mooning around but for Robert it was prison itself.
I have not got the faintest idea when he took up drinking because when he was drunk, he did not seem so. Rumour had it sometimes that he was seen in pubs here or there but no one wanted to believe it so they could keep it in secret for a long time.

I am sure that he was destroyed by Maria. After the case with the porcelain angel she always tried to be very kind to me, baked me cakes, bought me dolls for my birthday but I could love neither her nor her gifts. Whenever she was at home, Robert behaved so… differently. He was walking tiptoe, dusted the porcelains and washed the forks and glasses twice or three times one after the other and never smiled.
It was not just once that I witnessed when Robert heard the entrance door open, he shivered and clenched his teeth. Of course, he did it slightly but I knew Him and noticed it on him. After that he greeted his wife nicely, asked her how her day was. As a response, she made hours’ long stories about her doings. She was stroking, hugging and kissing Robert’s neck and giggling she asked him if he had spent that day with his lover as usual. To hear that, Robert was always outraged upon the assumption and as a result, Maria said laughing she was just jesting.
There was only one instance that Robert got fed up with this drama – because it was a drama indeed – and mildly answered yes, he had spent all the day with a beautiful girl with velvety thighs. Then Maria flung three porcelain figures to the floor and threw another two of them toward us and burst out in tears so bitterly that even I felt sorry for her. She ran upstairs and what I later heard was only Robert’s voice shouting at her asking her to stop that madness at once and put down the thing she was holding in her hand.
When everything became silent upstairs, Robert came down to me and whispering into my ears asked me to forgive him.
That was the second and last time for me to see Maria in that state. I was not more than ten years old and I did not really get what was going on, what I only knew was that I had nothing to forgive. He hugged me, he held me in his arms closely as if he would never let go… but in the next moment he gave me a push away, he had to do that as his wife came downstairs. Maria flung her arms around his neck and whispered to him that she loved him, loved him more than anything, so much that she would forgive him even that cruel joke.
I felt very sorry for both of them.
I told no one about this. A few days later I had doubts whether it had ever happened as everything was going on as if nothing had happened at all.

I still have my memory book from that period. I asked Robert to draw me something in it and write something nice as well. At that time it was a fashion and all I wanted was to get a drawing and a few sweet lines from him.
He kept the little book with himself for at least two weeks. I thought he had forgotten about it or he did not want to draw for me when I eventually got it back. I do not know how he did it but he made me a small mosaic picture with the pieces stuck together from tiny beads. There was an itsy-bitsy blue flower with an even tinier and bluer butterfly sitting on it. He knew that blue was my favourite colour. All that he wrote with his crooked letters below the picture was To My Only One.
I never gave that memory book to anyone else again.

One night I was woken up by someone throwing small pebbles at the window of my room. When I looked out of the window, I saw Robert down on our terrace. I was very happy to see him although I got a little frightened as well. He signalled to me with his hand to make me go down immediately. We lived in a two-storey house and my room was located on the second floor so when I whispered it into the moonlit night that I could not go, he just shook his head as a sign of not understanding what I was saying and waved to me to go down.
I threw some clothes on myself hastily and sneaked down. I tried to open the door as silently as possible, and though I did not do it with much success, my parents did not wake up.
Robert was standing there at the door and he was very drunk. I was thirteen years old and I had heard it said by more and more people that he was hooked on alcohol, but I never believed a word they said. But then he was standing in front of me swaying from side to side with his eyes blurred. He could have been drinking a lot. I was not afraid of him, I was only worried about him so much. I ran up to him and asked him what was wrong. He said now that I was with him, nothing could harm him.
He hugged me, smelt my hair and began jumbling words about his leaving for another town to start a new life. But all that would have a meaning only if I could go with him as his daughter, his Everything and asked me not to be afraid of him because I was more important to him than anything else in the world and I could do whatever I wanted to do, but we two together could start a new life, far, far away from all.
No, he did not look at me or touch me as a woman for a single minute, he behaved the same way as before, as if I would be his daughter. I did not want to lose him and what he jumbled together sounded as beautiful as a fairy tale and I was so scared that all I could do was nodding.
He pulled me into the car immediately and did not let me go back to the house to collect my stuff so that my parents would not be woken up by the noise. He fastened my seat belt and also his own and asked me to give him a few minutes for his head to clear. He bent his head on the wheel and stayed so for 5 minutes. In the meantime I was trying to pull my thoughts together but I was unable to do that. Thousands and thousands of questions were rumbling in my mind and finally all I could falter out was this one:
”And what will become of Maria?”
He slowly raised his head from the wheel. His eyes had become quite clear. They were again those beautiful brown eyes that I loved so much. He answered in a very sad, faltering voice that he did not know. And a few seconds later in a tormented tone he added that he did not really care.
All the way long he was talking to me, he was trying to drive very slowly and carefully. He was telling miracles about our new life together. Miracles that even with my child’s mind I knew of that they were silly things. I was just nodding silently. It took about three-quarters of an hour when he stopped talking. We carried on our journey in silence and who knows where we could have stopped if tears had not broken up from my heart.
It had been stuck inside of me since I first saw him drunk on our terrace. In the beginning he was asking about what the matter was, then he stopped at the side of the road. I could not say a word, I was just crying and crying. I leaned on his shoulder shaking all over.
Minutes passed by, heavy minutes that seemed like hours until I could calm down. I could not put into words what was wrong, all I could squeeze out of myself was: ”I’m scared”. Then he immediately turned back on the road and we started for home. He was driving homeward, one hand on the wheel and the other gripping my hand. I always felt the lump in my throat whenever he let my hand free to be able to shift gear.
When we stopped in front of our house, he was just staring ahead, waiting for me to get out of the car. I did not get out, I was watching him. When he turned towards me, he apologised and said that I was a very clever girl. He stroked my face. He got out of the car, walked to my side and opened the door for me. He embraced me. I wanted to tell him that I loved him so much, but I was just clinging to him. I looked at him hopefully and asked if I could pop round the next day – and he was just nodding.

The next day I was waiting for him at the gate as usual but he did not come home. We heard nothing from him for a week. Maria phoned the police and the hospitals in every two minutes, but nobody had heard from him. On the third day my Mum called the doctor for Maria to be given a tranquillizing injection as she had been driving herself mad. We were worried that she might turn against herself and take her own life.
Robert arrived home without his car, he came on foot. He looked horrible. He could have spent a few days on the street, somewhere far away. Still, he returned to Maria. He could not do anything else. From that day he started drinking openly and heavily. Two weeks later he rang our doorbell. My heart began throbbing so fast that I could hardly take a breath. Mum did not let me go out to him and anyway, he had come only to borrow some money from my Dad.
Soon after we moved house. We could not put up with the horrible yelling coming from their house. Once I overheard Mum and Dad say my school grades were going down because I was witnessing Robert destroying himself day by day. It was my Mum who convinced Dad of the necessity of moving as soon as possible. Then I felt really angry with her for that but now I see that it was a very wise decision of her.
I wanted to say farewell to Robert but my Mum did not let me do so. I had not been allowed to meet him for long so I could not even say to him a hearty ’goodbye’.

At that time I could not conceive how it was possible that Maria loved her husband so much, in a fanatic way, and still they were not happy. Many years later, when I fell in love for the first time, did I have to realise the truth that it is easy to love but it is really hard to love well.

I have still been missing Robert. I am doing my best to preserve only the nice memories. For example, how beautiful his hands were then, at the workshop, when he was trying to give life to the broken porcelain angel – ME.

[Jon]

I had such a beautiful chance at a pic for your Black Rose I regret not taking it.

[Steve]

This story isn't really a story, but more of a fable or allegory. Either way, it works. I think it's beautiful in its imagery and I can sense a true talent in the writer. Good job!

[Frunobulax]

Wow, Letti. Robert was emotional and touching. Bravo!

[Letti]

Thanks a million and even more. :rose:

[Steve]

"Robert" puts you at the top of your game, Letti. Best work in your catalogue thus far. Keep it comin'!

[Letti]

"Robert" puts you at the top of your game, Letti. Best work in your catalogue thus far. Keep it comin'!

I am really happy you say this. Thank you. "Robert" is the most important to me. I had been working on it so much.
Thanks.

[Letti]

The flower girl

She was hardly over ten when she had already been selling flowers every morning in front of a bakery. She was such a beautiful little girl that even the grumpy baker allowed her to offer her fragile goods in front of his shop. Moreover, when he was in high spirits he also gave her a cheese-roll for which she gave him the prettiest bunch of bluebells. First the baker shed tears over this kindness in the shade of the oven - but he could do nothing more.
She was a lovely creature with a lily-white body so slender that you had to fear that the mildest shower might powder her or the lightest summer breeze might blow her away. Her wide brown eyes watched timidly the masses flowing in the street in front of her.
She examined everyone closely, she couldn't do anything more. There was a lady with a hat whom she didn't like too much. She always took a close look at her, shook her head, took out her leather handbag, then out of it her leather purse, looked inside it, shook her head again and moved on. But she liked the old misters and mistresses who only bought flowers after the pension arrived, but then they always did it smiling. However, her favourite was a guy about twenty who praised her beauty and prettiness every morning, and bought a bunch of bluebells.. He took it to his fiancée - at least this was what he said.
To tell the truth, the flowers went slowly. People didn't realise she was there, many stumbled over her and cussed, but she never took it to her heart.. She cried only once, when a rushing man with a briefcase kicked all the flowers out of her hands, and with the same dash he overran them as well. It was the only time when she went home earlier than 8 o'clock.
But in most cases half of the bunches remained for the evening. Then she didn't feel sorry for the money but for the flowers as the poor ones withered for the next day and they could be beautiful for no one anymore. So she took the flowers not bought home and loved and nursed them for weeks on the window-sill, in the corners of the rooms, sometimes even behind the bed until they faded to grey, though she still found them beautiful.

One day, when only a few bunches of bluebells had been sold by 2 o'clock, suddenly a very strange man popped up in front of her. He had a belly as huge as though he was hiding a barrel under his shirt, and a moustache so big and long that the little girl had this slipped out of her mouth:
"What a great moustache!" But she immediately felt ashamed, and didn't know how to apologise.
But the strange man must have taken it as a compliment, because he twirled his moustache, straightened up and asked the girl smiling
"So, you jewel of the honest, tell me: how many bunches do you have?"
"Please wait!" She mustered all her skills to count them quickly, but this was very difficult as she didn't know where one began and where the other ended. She crouched down and put them on the ground one by one, slowly and gently next to each other. She had precisely ten bunches. She picked them up and scrambled to her feet winking.
"There are ten bunches left."
"Ten bunches" to himself murmured Mr Moustache (the little girl could only think about him as this) "but in a minute there won't be any more."
"How can you know that?" the little girl snapped at him, what she regretted in that very moment and asked for his forgiveness three times.
"Don't apologise so profusely because you may run out of it! Anyway, you are my godsend. You know, I'm in this town to meet my five older and five younger sisters. I haven't met them for ages, we go our own ways. I'm in a hurry not to be late, but I haven't brought them anything as a present. I would buy your ten bunches of bluebells for them."
"All ten bunches?" the little girl asked in a rather trembling tone.
"All ten bunches. I cannot hurt any of them. Imagine what 'd happen if nine would get and one not Or one would get and nine not. I think it would be a war about it. Just give me all ten bunches."
The little girl shucked the flowers out of her hands and put them into the palm of the moustached man where they looked even smaller. The gentleman pulled the money out of his pocket and slipped it to her hand.
"Excuse me, sir, but this is much more. They aren't so expensive!
"And did I ask the price?"
"No, you didn't. Don't be angry. I'm so sorry."
"I see you have plenty of apologies in your heart. If I had enough time I would ask you to count them too and no doubt I would also buy them all, but unfortunately I have no time for this because my sisters are waiting for me. Anyway, nowadays even smiles and apologies have a price which I had to pay for as well." and then suddenly his voice failed him for a short while and his face saddened. He was looking at her for about a minute silently; the little girl didn't dare to move.
"What's your name?"
"Dawn."
"Thanks for everything, Dawn." Mr Moustache said trying to smile a bit, then he turned round and in a second he had already disappeared in the mess.

And Dawn was left there without one single flower, early in the afternoon. And she was free.
She didn't know where to run, what to do. Her first thought was to go home, but the second ran just on the sweet-shop. She knew her mother wouldn't mind if she bought herself something teeny-weeny, so she decided not to go home until she found some kind of magic for herself. And she was already on her way to the sweet-shop.
The tiny bell set above the door jingled as she entered, just as though the bells of Dawn's heart pealed. There were sweets everywhere she looked. Purple, yellow, blue, round, colourful, shiny.
The little girl walked up to the counter, behind which she barely showed, and she said quietly
"Good afternoon, excuse me, I want to buy some sweets."
The shopkeeper was a definitely tall, cold woman with snow-white swan-neck never to be kissed. She was the kind who always had a piece of candy in the mouth but unfortunately cannot sweeten them with an ounce. She asked in a chilly, indifferent tone
"And of what type?"
The girl shuddered, she didn't really understand the question. Though still in a brave tone she asked
"What types do you have?"
The woman looked at her from behind her round spectacles as though she had wanted to learn more about the half-life of fissile materials.
"What do you mean 'what types do I have?’ Look round! There are so many types that I couldn't count them from morning to night. But everyone has a favourite."
A favourite… Dawn started to get hopeless - for she didn't have a favourite. She was only longing for something sweet, something delicious trifle. And then suddenly something occurred to her and she broke out happily:
"I'd want some toffees!" and she added proudly "That's my favourite!"
The saleswoman remained stiff and calm. "And exactly what kind do you want? Soft-centre or unfilled? If soft-centre, with what should it be filled? Chocolate, or perhaps with jelly, and if with jelly, what kind of jelly? Fruity? Apple or pear?
"I'm.. I'm so sorry? Excuse me.. I'm so, so.." But the little girl didn't say these words in the shop. . She rushed out of the store, she didn't want that nasty toad / regular old cat disguised as a shopkeeper to see her tears.

She didn't long for anything sweet anymore. She would rather chew pickled cucumbers than set foot again in that rigid shop. She dried her tears that appeared so suddenly. After her own heart she would have gone home, but the money was still weighing her patchy pocket and the wish of buying something for herself was so ardent that she didn't even notice that her feet were taking her towards the toy shop.
She stopped in front of the shop-window and examined the toys. Her heart was beating so fast and was fluttering so wildly that she was afraid of someone hearing it. The shop-window was full of toys one more beautiful than the other: dolls that could speak if you stroke their hair, teddy bears whose belly you could draw on.
Here she entered much more timidly and marched quietly to a friendly-looking saleswoman.
"Excuse me, please. Are marbles sold here?"
The woman, who was putting the newly arrived toys onto the shelves, helped her willingly. She sprang up and accompanied her to the very back of the shop where the marbles could be found.
"Here they are, see? There are thirty marbles in a packet, they are very nice and they aren't even expensive."
"Thank you very much" Dawn smiled relieved. "Then I would like to have one, please."
The lady gazed at her in wonder.
"You mean one packet, don't you?"
"No, no, I'd need one single marble."
"I'm sorry, little girl, but these are sold by the packet and they cannot be opened. But why would you want to open it; you will be better off if you buy thirty marbles than only one!"
But the little girl knew that this was not true. She discovered it as a mere child that anything can be really beautiful and valuable until there is only a few of it. She had not the faintest idea of what could she do with thirty marbles. You can keep looking at one, you can love it, admire it through long minutes - but what could you do with thirty?
"Thank you very much" Dawn said sunk into herself. "Then I wouldn't need any marbles."
"Do you want anything else?"
"I don't want anything else. What I wanted most was only one single marble."
By this time the saleswoman didn't understand a word of this, she suspected financial difficulties in the background so she patted the little girl on the back and went back to pack toys.
When Dawn left the shop she had a lump in her throat, but she wouldn't burst out crying, she just wouldn't cry. Since she had no reason for it. She could have bought thirty, or even sixty marbles, or any kind of sweets, only she didn't want to. She did not want to. She wanted neither sweets, nor marbles, nor anything else: she only wanted to be at home at last.
As she bent her tiny steps towards home she passed by a flower-shop. She stopped in front of it. She was looking at the flowers. All one by one a different ray of sunlight. She touched the petals of one, stroke the leaves of another.: She was admiring a proud rose when a lovely twittering voice asked from behind her back
"Can I be any help to you?"
Dawn turned round in alarm, but only an old lady almost as short as herself was standing behind her, in a purple kerchief.
"These flowers are beautiful. All are so splendid, the dahlias and the freesias are so innocent. And the bluebells - they are looking at me just as though they were my sisters!" Dawn said laughing in a self-forgetting manner.
"All are from my garden."
"Excuse me, can I have one single flower?"
The old lady was smiling proudly. "Of course you can. Just choose one. Courage!"
Dawn was still admiring the rose in enchantment. She charmed her. Her slender stalk, her large, petalled head, as though she just fell off the canvas into the vase.
"I would like to have a rose" she muttered rather to herself than to the all-smile lady, but she would have heard it even if she had only thought it.
"But please, don't cut off the thorns."
"No, no! I wouldn't do that, darling." The old lady snatched the one most beautiful from the vase and put it into the hands of the little girl. Dawn paid and continued her way home.
As she was clutching the rose in her hand, she pricked her a bit. She winced in pain for a moment, put her finger hurting in the mouth then looked at it to see how deeply the thorn had wounded her.
A tiny red blood-pearl appeared on her finger pad, but she didn't mind it at all. It was sweeter than any candy, shining brighter than any marble.

[Jean]

thank you for posting it here, love, I adore this story http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k291/mishemplushem/Facilitation/0134-bear.gifhttp://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k291/mishemplushem/Facilitation/0134-bear.gifhttp://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k291/mishemplushem/Facilitation/0134-bear.gif

[Steve]

The Flower Girl:

Okay, let's clear it up: this story has everything the rest of Letti's have: a sweet, short parabolic tale of beauty that resonates with each word. I enjoyed this fable every much, but I still think it fell short of perfect. Maybe it's the pessimist in me, but I can't shake the feeling. Sorry.

Final Grade: A-

[ManOfWesternesse]

Ah yes, I remember this one from DTnet too. Nice to read it again here. Beautiful tale Letti.

[Storyslinger]

Letti, you write truely amazing, and I read Robert, at your request, many times

You are truely talented, keep up the good work :couple: