Dan Howell is a prize flower. He's grown and tamed and shaped to be perfect. No flaws, no imperfections, no problems. Every petal sculpted to the crowning size. Every leaf explicitly green. Every inch mutated and so imperfectly perfect.
Did he choose to be perfect?
No.
Did he choose to be a rose?
No.
Did he get decide where to spend his life?
No. Of course not.
He was grown on a farm, put through a rigorous process that made him identical to the thousand others that passed through the system before him. Many didn't pass. But he did. Why did he pass?
He never wanted to be special.
He never wanted to be unique.
He never wanted to stand out.
He didn't ask to be royal. He didn't want to. But he had too. He wasn't given a choice. Royalty was forced upon him.
Because what he wanted was to dance in the wind and swim in the rain. To laugh with the breeze and cry with the storms. To smile with the sun and frown with the moon. He didn't want to be stuck in a room with a single window and fluorescent lighting, with a pair of always present watchful eyes peering through the gloom in the corner. In fact, he didn't even ask.
Did he want to be prized?
No.
Did he want to be won?
No.
Did he want to be something?
Yes. He wanted to be something. To mean something. He wanted to be more than the empty casserole wrapper at the bottom of the office trash can, after the competition was over. He wanted to have a lasting legacy. If not on everyone, than at least on himself. He wanted to be more than just a prize.
He wanted to be flawed. He wanted to have problems, that could result in either bigger problems or a set of solutions. He wanted to have imperfections because that's what made somethings natural.
Being perfect wasn't natural.
Being flawless wasn't natural.
Having no imperfections wasn't natural.
Having no problems wasn't natural.
And he knew it.
Because everyone knew it.
Because everyone knows prize flowers are dead inside. Because once you snap that stem, no matter what you do, nothing, nothing, will change the fact that it's in two pieces.
Prize flowers are perfect. Beautiful and culminating and unblemished. Pure.
But he's dead. Dead as a doornail, dead as ghost. Dead as chivalry.
And he knows it.
However angelic it may look on the outside, it was just a plethora of death and depression and despair on the inside.
Because nothing is perfect.
Dan Howell is a flower. A prize flower. He's just a corpse posed to look perfect for his last dying breath.
