White Rose

My vision is hazy as my eyelashes slowly open to a pitch-dark, unknown, environment. A tremor passes through my bones even though I don't feel cold. In fact, my face is burning up, the mind is rushing, the eyes are moving rapidly from side to side trying to discern the different shades of black that surround me. I try to move my limbs but manage only to feel a tremendous burden that keeps pulling me down, which I must fight in order to move on. Despite this, I feel at the same time as if my body floats in a suffocating liquid. An invisible breeze of dry air throws my hair back. I fight the urge to fall to the ground and fall asleep forever. I attempt to move forward, as if in a dream, in decreased velocity with a hundred invisible hands pulling me back. My lungs grasp for oxygen, fighting as if for their lives to stay inside me.

As my vision slowly returns to me, I see a single white dot, blurred, in a distance. I try to advance towards it, and it feels like each step is another year off my life, each breath - another javelin in my chest. I reach my hand towards it, helplessly trying to reach it. No success. Again I try, pushing harder, and I am almost there. And again, I fail, falling to the invisible ground, kneeling before the vision in front of me. As I fight to get back on my feet, I see the rose opening its petals, and a pleasant perfume tickles my nostrils. The flower grows, and the more it grows, the prettier it becomes, out of my reach it still remains.

Futility falls upon me. I punch the invisible ground, launch a mute scream into the dark air, and stumble forward with my remaining breath. Vision concentrated forward, on the object, all of everything passing beneath, and besides me unnoticed and uncared for. Only when it passes in front, I pay it attention to ultimately remove it from my way, like the obstacles that they are. And thousands of faceless figures pass by the rose in before me, going and leaving, all admiring it for a second, yet getting stung by its protective spikes. A single tear sheds down like a petal, not for the faceless victims of the spikes, but for the necessity of thereof. And those that have been stabbed countless times, are still more afraid than all others. Yet still they seek to reach as close they can.

And as the years pass, having passed through countless gardens of flowers, yet still the white rose is there, and all it needs is some water and protection, without its knowledge. Some help to grow without ever touching it, for it still has its spikes, and its prick sheds blood, blood that will feed it, until I am consumed, and only when it will be fully red, and myself fully consumed, will it see its true color, only then will it bow its head in sorrow. And its spikes will not sting me. My fingers will not bleed; only its petals will remain red, and forever marked with the infinite fate of the hands which would rather be consumed than see the flower die in vain.