32 Ways to Say Help

-for the lover of roses

   Our existence was my point of pride. Somehow we had found happiness, by means of a miracle we were still alive. I worked in the gardens and he envied that I was surrounded by roses in a house of glass. His own work suited him, keeping people warm was simply the job of his presence. No, I jest, my brother woke at night to tend to the fires on particularly cold nights. Many nights I roamed the halls by his side and was the scribe of his poetic, sleepless daydreams. I didn't care for the difficulty it gave my work, the exhaustion was worth it to spend time with him.
   A night we were in the garden, an illegality of course, but it was quickly remedied by my slipping off to sleep the moment he turned away. But from that night on he would whisper good night to me without fail.
   I loved my brother so much; he was the wind in my sails, the sun in my sky, the love in my heart, the stars in my galaxy.
   Once we'd been in the garden, as we often were, as I pruned the white roses. He walked up behind me and picked one, casually doing something he knew he shouldn't, and put it behind my ear. When I asked him what he was thinking, he said,
   'I love these roses. Perhaps I shouldn't trouble them, my hands could wilt their beauty. So instead I can host it upon something of similar delicacy and bring together two things I love, although the rose is undeserving." I wrote it down.
   After little more the a year I had written a book full of my brother's precious words, but he hadn't yet said that perfect ending. I was almost ready to give up when I became very ill. I couldn't walk, I could barely speak and my cold-sweat nightmares were voiding my sanity. For as long as he could, my brother took care of me, but he gave up eventually.
   I begged him to take the unfinished manuscript to the publisher and he obliged.
   It was a rainy day, true British weather, when there was a phone call. I was still ill, but I found the strength to sprint the mile into town. A big crowd surrounded him, they made room for the strange, rain-soaked girl in a nightgown with a rose in her hair. My eyes fell on his body. It was trampled and swimming in blood that streamed down the streets.
   My soul went utterly numb as I fell to my knees. Hot tears fell down my face; this was real. I could imagine the last light fading from his shadowy twilight eyes, how his last moments were silent and teary but disguised under the rain.
   I glanced to the side and noticed something he was gripping tightly against his chest. I didn't want to believe what I saw, but it was the book. The ink was barely legible in the deluge that smudged everything I'd worked on so hard.
   My brother's cause of death: hit by a carriage at the foot of Mumford's Publishing Company because his selfish sister begged a favor.
   My tears fell faster, rushing down my cheeks to reach my brother. I didn't care that everyone could see me; they were his old friends that had abandoned him one by one. They knew they had no rights to displays of emotion.
   "You said you would never leave me," I whispered, grasping his collar and leaning down to his face. Those dim caramel eyes just stared at me blankly...as thought they really were dead.
   "Come back!" My voice was straining already, "when I told you to leave you said you never would, so what time is it now?! You promised you would always be here, and you said you wouldn't lie to make me happy anymore! So why are you lying to me now," I broke into sobs, "Never isn't here yet! Which means you're not dead! I can't be all alone, I'm not strong enough..."
   I spent my next days at the undertaker's, overseeing the preparation of his body and casket. They were on display at the funeral. It shattered and built me up to see his corpse wearing crisp clothes in a bed of white roses that he adored so much.
   When I looked at him I convinced myself he was only sleeping, my brother wasn't dead, just in a state of suspended animation. One day he would come back and I would be whole, not a motionless ship, a grey sky, an empty heart or a starless Galaxy.
   So each day I went to his grave with a bunch of roses waiting for him to ring the grave bell. The grief was brutal and soon I died too, the cold didn't suit me well...but no one waited for my grave bell to ring, and no one missed me.

-Alanna