Primaveral

It was a beautiful morning, thought the little red rose. The little red rose grew up in a small dirt patch surrounded by trees. It liked it very much there- those trees were old and wise. Sometimes the little red rose could feel them ponderously humming through his roots. The tall trees spoke of ancient times long before this one, of freezing cold and dirtless water; metal trees that were transparent as ice, black ground that was once a liquid. The little red rose always shuddered to hear such things-they were always such terrible things, the stories they moaned underground. It reminded him that there were many little red roses before him and, like them, when the bitter cold came he would brown and go to rot. But for now, the little red rose lived in the cheery childhood days of spring. His bright pink petals were beautiful compared to the strange ferns around him, with their short stature and spiky leaves. The little red rose stood above them and ruled as a benevolent king, not demanding or intrusive in his policies but content to assert his obvious superiority over the feckless ferns. The great trees above in turn looked with pity and love on the little red rose and relinquished some of the light that shone from the sky in yellow rays so that the little red rose could eat his fell. His petals were as pink as a mans flesh, his stalk as green as a lizards skin. Truly, thought the little red rose, this was a time so beautiful as to never be claimed by death or fading memory. The little red rose once saw something quite disturbing in his little kingdom. He saw a man running away. He was covered in green and brown, and for a moment he appeared as if he were one of the trees come to life. As he sprinted across the grove (quite rudely-he needed have only asked permission of the little red rose and safe passage would have been granted), he tripped, and there was a great commotion. A beast was upon him, with scaly green skin like the withered corpse of the grandfather of the little red rose. The beast had curved rocks for hands, curved rocks that slashed into the pale flesh of the man. A liquid came out of the man that was as red as a fernberry: screams and sounds came from man and beast that were worse than any cries of the blue and orange bird. Oh how much did the little red rose want to shut his petals and hide away from the light that showed such a thing! But that was a thing done in the past, when the little red rose was little more than a seedling. Now he was a plant full grown, and in the light there was no terrors.