Rose: A Mystery in 500 Words
During time spent on lock down in the 2020 coronavirus outbreak, I produced a series of character studies, short shorts, poems, and vignettes in 500 or fewer words. Enjoy!
For Pauli
The edge of the shovel dug into her foot but she pushed harder, bearing down, and the blade sank satisfyingly into the loamy soil. The rose bush shuddered.
“Don’t worry,” she told it. “You’ll like the new spot better.” She always spoke to her plants. She didn’t name them though.
Liking roses so much embarrassed her. It seemed so cliché to adore the flower of romance when she liked to think of herself as a practical person. Roses had been so modified, bred, and cultured that they had mutated into unnatural symbols of capitalist culture.
And yet. The velvety petals unfurling like a body opening to desire, the way the morning dew clung in crystalline droplets, the rich colors like candy in the morning sun. She loved them.
She didn’t love anything rose scented or flavored. Rose smelled too cloying, the taste like soap on her tongue. But straight from the source; there was a reason “stop and smell the roses” had become a euphemism for enjoying life.
She worked the shovel carefully around the plant, going slowly, until she could lift it free. The dark green leaves shivered. She discarded the tool and got down on her knees in the dirt to work her gloved hands carefully through the roots, pulling them gently loose. The whole things lifted suddenly and she rocked back on her heels, feeling one thorn pierce her long sleeved shirt.
She also loved that roses have thorns. Beauty and pain: no better euphemism for life.
She set the rose on the piece of burlap she’d prepared and picked up the shovel to fill in the hole. But she spotted something sticking up out of the dirt and she paused in a crouch to see it better. It looked like a piece of flagstone, dark from the ground. Curious, she grasped the edge and tugged experimentally. It shifted but not as much as expected; it’s bigger than it looks and still mostly buried. She tugged harder.
It gave suddenly enough to rock her back on her heels and she pulled it free and out of the hole. It appeared to be a piece of flagging bigger than a foot square. At first she thought that it’s dirty but then the lines resolved too orderly and she brushed the earth off to reveal a face.
It’s startling enough that she drew away from the stone. It’s androgynous, a square-jawed face with wide-set eyes. Fluffy hair fell in bangs across the high forehead and around the thick neck. Steady, contemplative eyes, slightly upturned. It’s a woman she decided, a visage etched like an old grave marker. She thought of bones in the ground, lying silent, and shivered. Had the previous owners buried someone here?
Grasping the edge of the stone she flipped it to see the other side. Nothing. She turned it back over and brushed the last crumbles of earth off but there’s no name, no date. Just that face, staring thoughtfully up at the empty sky.