Rose

Chapter One: Kalemont

Rose walked down the street, staring at the address written down on his hand. It was about ninety-three degrees Fahrenheit as Rose wandered the small, southern American town, so Rose extracted plenty of strange looks for that day's outfit. Black jeans and leather boots dressed his body from the waist down, a pink T-shirt under a leather jacket covered everything else. The jacket was decorated with a giant snake on the back, a long white reptile hissing at the people behind him. The words "The Dublin Python's" was written in Times New Roman font across Rose's shoulder blades, embroidered in blood red. His shaggy black hair stuck to the back of his neck with sweat, but he wasn't going to take that jacket off for anything, heat stroke be damned.

Rose stopped and clenched his jaw, growing increasingly frustrated with finding 9870 Range street, the small trailer available for rent. It was seven hundred dollars a month, and with his brand new job as a florist, he planned on moving out of the shitty motel he lived in and into that.

Two weeks before, Rose took an emergency flight from Norway to Tennessee. It was the first time on a plane, and the first time he had left Europe. But he couldn't take another chance, he was so sick of them. The farther away he got, the better. And what was better than the land of opportunity itself?

After that, he found the smallest, least populated town he could, breaking his pattern of big cities and sexual careers. Instead, he stumbled across a help wanted sign perched in the window of a flower shop, handwritten on white posterboard. Without a second thought, he walked in and applied. He was hoping his artistic streak would help him make up for his total lack of floral experience. As he looked back over his resume, his hopes weren't quite as high as he would have liked. He revised it a million times, a million more just to be safe, but he couldn't make it look any better without lying through his teeth. So, he just grimaced, sitting hunched over in an uncomfortable plastic chair, using a flimsy paper folder to bear down on the non-state certified job application, causing his handwriting to look messier than it already was. He was located to the right of the town's only florist, Ruth Madison, a fifty-year-old native of Kalemont, Tennessee, a town so small few even know it exists. She was well known among the small population, very well-liked, too. Her whole family was, except for a few drugged out cousins and a couple of deadbeat distant relations. According to the word of the town, she was willing to give people a chance they didn't deserve, so long as she liked them and they did their job correctly. That was all Rose needed.

Smiling shyly, Rose handed his application to the woman sitting behind the counter. She smiled and took it, her gentle hands not causing the slightest bend in the piece of paper. Rose cleared his throat anxiously as she began reading. "Uh...I know I'm not the most qualified applicant," he justified, "but I promise I'll do my best." Rose went red. "If, uh, you decide to hire me, that is."

Rose watched her read through it, her face twisting into that of more and more confusion. From the "dancer" and "Russian acrobat" in his list of past employments to the fact that his full name was, apparently, Rose X X, he didn't blame her at all. Rose chewed his lip, playing with a fray in his jacket. Time to search the black market, put up an ad. He had to resist scowling. Again...

He rubbed his bicep awkwardly, staring at the ground. He knew the look on her face by heart. Before he could apologize for wasting her time, she looked back up at him, taking off her purple reading glasses. She smiled a bit, looking back up. "Huh," she started. "Your real name is Rose?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

She laughed. "Your family must have hated you!"

Rose laughed awkwardly. "Uh...no, actually. I named myself. My family...well, I don't really...uh...they're not...sorta...alive..." Rose trailed off. Ruth creased her eyebrows sympathetically.