The Boy and His Flower

By: HJD

A long time ago, there was a boy. He was someone who just didn't understand his own life. Kids going to his school called him a loser, they bullied him constantly, taking his things from him, punching him, beating on him because of his good natured soul. The hatred inside the other kids made him hate himself. Hate how he looked. He didn't care much about himself after that. He fell into a depression and yearned to end his pitiful life every day, he didn't have the courage to do it himself though.

One day the boy shuffled his feet in a meadow. He trudged along with his head low, tears streamed down his face. He reheard every name that other kids identified him as. You're a faggot, you're ugly, you're fat, you're no one, no one loves you, go kill yourself loser!

Loser. That word played over in his mind, over, and over. He began to believe everything other kids called him, or told him to do. He wanted to do it; he wanted to end his life. So he tried, in his hand was a rope. He tied it to the only tree in the meadow; he then put it around his neck. As he was about to jump, the wind hit his face, he turned to look as if something was calling him.

The boy saw a dark patch in the meadow, an eye sore in such a beautiful sea of flowers. To him every flower was the same, the same color, the same smell, the same features. But this, this intrigued his thoughts. He unhooked the rope from his neck and climbed down the tree. As he walked over to this patch of ground, he saw a small, delicate, beat up flower. At first he made fun of how it was beat up and destroyed in such a beautiful place. But then he realized the flower was like him, beat up, losing its will to live. He took off his shoe, and he dug up the flower and placed it into the shoe. He then headed back home with the flower.

Over time, he began to fall in love with this flower; he thought it was the most beautiful thing he ever laid eyes on. He nurtured and loved the flower, for weeks, for months, never giving up on it. The flower grew, it grew and grew. It became magnificent, and confident, it was breathtakingly stunning. The flower eventually started to be able to handle itself and didn't need the boy much anymore.

The boy began to grow sad and depressed again. He started to be more aggressive towards the ever sprouting flower. He put so much love and affection into the flower and it grew into such a confident and beautiful being, that now that it won't need him anymore, he felt betrayed and he was jealous that such a beautiful thing he helped create and loved so dearly would leave him behind.

He brought the flower back to its old home in the meadow. He visited it every day, but it grew more and more without him. He began to become angry and frustrated. He would go back every day and pull off a petal. He did this for months, not realizing the damage he was putting back on the flower, jealous of how the flower didn't need him as much anymore. Finally, the last day he visited the flower, he pulled the final petal from its head, and he left.

The next day he went back, but it was still missing petals, the boy felt ashamed for what he did. He realized that he was a monster. He destroyed the flower's love for the boy. As the flower grew it still loved and cherished the boy. But the pain and suffering it was forced to deal with destroyed its feelings towards the boy. The boy kept coming back to the flower, he watered it and nurtured it more, but the flower wouldn't come back. It never grew petals again.

The boy sobbed and shook. The pain and shame he felt were astonishing. He left the flower one last time and headed back towards the tree he had once known. He sat down next to the tree and looked at the rope still hanging there, waiting for him. He climbed up the tree, put the rope around his neck, and sat on the branch.

He watched the sunset as he thought to himself it would be the final, beautiful thing he'd watch, die. Once the sunset disappeared, he stood up, stepped off the branch, and watched the flower blow in the breeze as his final breath escaped from his lungs.

You never know the most beautiful things in your life, until they leave forever.