Fools, Flowers and Falls

I remember keeping your rose in an empty beer bottle on the bedside stool, as I got home that night. Passing the stem through its mouth and withdrawing my fingers, letting it drop. Its petalled bulb coming to rest against the rim in a soundless thud.

I do not know why I did that. On other days there would have been no bottle at the first place. Having never realized sense in the idea of a person dutifully showing up at my door and asking for a bagful of garbage, I personally took the trash out first thing in the morning, without anyone's asking, to a designated bin in the lobby for it to be picked from there. And likewise, with that habit, went the bottles too, emptied overnight in desperation. But that morning I was getting late, and so it all stayed in.

Though I fell in line with my habits soon, that bottle with your rose in it never quite left its place. Not that I didn't want to, but I never remembered it was there. Until all the petals had fallen dried, their hue drained, their fragrance faded, their purpose lost; and that once green stock, reduced to a mere wilted line of black against the thick glass.

May be there always is a thing called conscience that we choose to not pay heed. May be we all do know what awaits us before it really unfolds. Perhaps not the whole picture but that slightest of inkling, that undeniable tremor of vibes at our throat is always there, unlying, through everything. But the hazard in love is that it wants to get to the bottom of everything even when it’s a bottomless pit, and the imminent fall, its doom – seeking clear answers out of grave silences and be broken as ever; awaiting warm goodbyes from the unwelcoming who departed without a trace; and for everything there was to wither and lose fragrance before giving it all up. Love, in its quest for truth, wants as bad to be wounded as it wishes to triumph.

May be it wasn’t sheer nonchalance after all that I left the rose there that day. May be we were destined to not happen: like the beer I solemnly chugged, knowing well it won’t get me drunk.

© Sobhan