Roses Are Red

I can no longer enjoy the beauty of roses, their deep red colour no longer symbolizes passionate love in my eyes, the once alluring colour of the rose now fills me with fear and panic. Its colour, its smell, now symbolizes a bloody death. I’ve started to plant sunflowers and lilies, instead of passionate love I will happily satisfy with a quiet, yet sunny and peaceful life. I want a relaxing future so much, I don’t think I’ve ever wished, ever prayed, ever begged for something so earnestly. But life has a funny way of responding to my wishes because my sunflowers never seem to grow, and the lilies always wilt, only the rosebush stands tall in the garden, it defies my wishes, it refuses to die. It stands tall in protest as if it’s sworn a solemn duty to never let me move on, to always remind me that blood was shed for my survival. My feet pulled towards my chest I hug myself and focus on the sound of the rain beating against the windows. I want to close my eyes but if I do red roses will be what I see. So, I rock myself slowly, steadily calming my racing heart, I slowly turn my head and lift my gaze hoping that I will be relieved of the burden that has been plaguing me, but my breath becomes shaky, and a gust of cold air suddenly engulfs me as I meet his gaze.
His indifferent brown eyes hold me hostage and I am afraid to look away. His lips slowly curl into a smile he is so close to me I imagine his breath on my neck, I’m too scared to move now because what if I do and he is really there? I close my eyes and try to calm my trembling heart, but the red roses are all I can see. I open my eyes he’s still there, right next to me, faces inches apart he stares into my eyes, on his lips is etched his signature soft smile. He reaches a hand forward and brush my hair out of my face causing me to freeze in place and he pulls out a rose, he smells it and then brings it to his lips. He eats it and the rose goes from being a symbol of his love for me to a symbol of his sacrifice, blood gushes from his mouth and he gasps for air. He chokes on the blood; he is suffocated by his love for me, and I can do nothing. I can’t scream, I can’t move I watch him die like I’m watching a scene from a movie. This is where it ends so need to cause a scene. I don’t close my eyes this time I want to watch him disappear and prove to myself that what I’ve been seeing is all a lie.
“Sophie I’m home! Can you help me with the groceries its raining cats and dogs out there.” I let out a gasp as the voice of the man who has been my support fills the house.
“Hey, Sophie, didn’t you hear me what’s wrong? Are you fine? He rests a hand on my forehead, “Wow your burning up! Wait let me get a cold rag.” He stands but I grab him by the hand I didn’t mean to, I wanted to be strong, but I couldn’t.
“Please don’t go,” I whisper, “I’m scared please don’t leave me.”
“Sophie what is wrong at least look at me! What is it?” I squeezed his hand for support, but I could not risk looking at him because ‘he’ was still there. Blood still oozing out of his mouth he was still in front of me, he was still looking at me, he was still inches away and he refused to go. He sat firm like the rose bush in the garden he would not move although he was dead. “Sophie, talk to me! Sophie please…” the voice began to fade I could only focus on the bleeding man in front of me. He tilted his head slowly bringing his bloody lips closer to me. “That’s it I’m bringing you to the hospital…” I was lifted up off the bed and it felt like was pulled out of the cold atmosphere and I was in the warm arms of my guardian angel. I looked back towards the dead man was, but he was gone, and I was free, well at least for the time being.


“Doctor, what’s wrong with her? This high fever and she has lost her appetite, I just don’t know what’s happening!”
“No need to worry Mr Durkenhiem, congratulations are in order as it turns out you are going to be a father. Your wife is five weeks pregnant. She just needs rest, care, and good food she’ll be fine. Congratulations!”
“A father…how can it be? I can’t believe it! Sophie, did you hear that, it’s a miracle!” his happiness filled the room and even the nurses couldn’t help but smile at his joy. But I couldn’t smile, I couldn’t bring myself to get fooled into believing that I was going to be happy. I looked down on my stomach and stroked it, was my baby in there or was it just another illusion.
“Sophie…why are you crying? Aren’t you happy? We’re going to be parents this what we’ve always wanted.” My lips quivered and I tried to hold back the tears, but I couldn’t hold back the overwhelming flood of emotions. I cried out and gripped my chest, I pounded my chest because I knew this pregnancy was just a test which I would fail.
“I’m sorry!” I cried, “Please don’t do this to me! Please don’t punish me like this, please have mercy!” I fell to my knees and rubbed my hands together pleading, desperately begging the man standing in front of me, the man no one else could see.
“Sophie! Doctor please what’s wrong with her?” James cried.
“Mrs Durkenhiem! Mrs Durkenhiem can you hear me? Let me help you up.”
“Sophie please…Sophie…” James started to sob as he fell next to me, he tried to console me, but he doesn’t see the person standing in front of me, so he cannot understand my fear.
“Nurse Ricketts, I think she’s hallucinating get me the…” My heartbeat drowns out the sound of the persons around me and I reach out -in a desperate attempt to save my happiness- to the man in front of me. “David please…please” James flinches upon hearing me say his name and he immediately releases me. His breath becomes shaky, and he starts to remember, my fear is now easy for him to understand, and he starts sobbing uncontrollably. What should have been a happy occasion has turned into mourning akin to a funeral.
“Mr Durkenhiem you can’t break down now, you have to stay strong for your wife you have to stay strong for your child!”
“I can’t” James cried “this is my punishment for stealing my best friend’s wife. He’s going to take my child.”
I haven’t stopped begging and pleading with the man in front of me, but he is indifferent towards my pain and instead he stoops to my level his brown eyes locked with mine. David Rochester was my first love; he was a solider in the marines and he meant everything to me. He loved serving his country and I feared being away from him, he would leave for months on end, and I was so lonely. James supported me as his friend but one night when the weather was colder than usual, I found solace in his arms, he comforted me, and I didn’t feel lonely anymore only guilt. But after a few months the guilt disappeared. David got captured on one of their missions, but he fought hard to make it back to me, he sacrificed…he sacrificed a lot of lives to make it home to me.
“…when David returned home, he was greeted by me at the door. We weren’t expecting him to be alive…we didn’t mean to hurt him. He took one look at me, and I could see the realization in his eyes, then Sophie came to the door to see who was there and that was the start of our destruction. He took one look at her -she was 9 months pregnant and oh so beautiful- but he looked at her and a darkness overcame his face. He was armed with a bouquet of roses in one hand which he handed to her with a soft smile. I tried to… I tried to talk to him, to explain to him, we didn’t want to hurt him. We fell in love; it just happened, but I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t justify my actions, my betrayal to my best friend. The words couldn’t come, but he was calm, so calm we would never have expected him to pull out a gun, put it in his mouth and pull the trigger. The blood was everywhere. Sophie screamed so loudly but I couldn’t move. Our baby died that night, it was stillborn. And ever since every child that we’ve ever had has died at birth.” Tears streamed down James’s face as he recounted the horrid tale. He was slouched over, and his face was void of emotion, he sat defeated as I plead with David to forgive me. “Please, I want to move on I want to be happy, please forgive me.
“Please.” He smiled at me his mouth dripping with blood, he leaned forward and touched my belly, his face inches from mine he spoke to me for the first time, “It’s you who must forgive yourself, and if you can’t you’ll never successfully bring a child into this world again. Never.” I cried for all the children I had lost, I cried because of all the pain I caused, I cried because I knew this child too would be lost.