In the rose garden behind the two-story painted house, nestled on the foothills of the Rockies, the hybrid Solomon Mist Rosebush disdainfully straightened its exquisite shoulders in anticipation of the coming winter's hound. Unlike the other roses, this one was a rare perpetual rose blooming even in winter's extreme tempered conditions; something Eva's father had spent his entire life perfecting. In the gardener's shed the plastic rose cones stood at dusty attention, awaiting their chance to protect their charges, but the Solomon Mist need not be dressed in ridicule. The regular roses shivered as they nervously awaited their winter cloaks while the Solomon Mist Rose smirked at the thought of Jack Frost's menacing cold winter stare. Their faces a lovely red they would be and would not falter.
From atop Eva's sunrise window framed with a kaleidoscope of stained-glass color, she could see her painted garden. The bright green foliage constructed with nervous faces of yellow, pink and white, beckoned their beloved mistress. The array of tiny creatures living in harmony. Birds and bees. The regal Solomon Mist bush stood in silent slumber awaiting its majestic moment to grace the world with their eager faces held ablaze in a sea of white. Its crimson glory standing against the cold hard winter, like the hands of Mother Earth reaching out from the snow to grasp the eluding sun—always reaching out.
Stately knights of rocky mountain juniper stood in grand repose marking the garden's border, a maze of wonder. They stood tall and imposing like giant guards stationed in defense of an archaic edifice, protecting it against darker storms. Beyond its perimeter of conical troops, the Cascadian forest housed green clothed peasants of perennial heritage. Growing ever taller up the encircling foothills, emerging still further out, the princely Ponderosa pines in close rank. Their armies cover the foothills guarding against anything beyond the high Rockies to the north that would threaten approach. Those white capped giants ruled by the bejeweled king enveloped in his sleep toward the west. The giants ensconcing shadow embraced the world below. A few other homes lay scattered through the foothills, sparse grains of sand on rambling mounts of green framed by the snowcapped giants. Existing as if to hold up the sky.
The sun's warm caresses gently awakened Eva from her nocturnal slumber. When she arose, she was dazzled by her dew-ornamented garden. Tiny drops of water clung to everything in her garden. The greens, the golds, the blues and the reds. King Solar's gleaming ray danced delightedly in Eva's rose window, a window old in her father's time. The war had torn more than their country apart, as her mother so often found her memories revived with the brine tastes of the Black Man's hand. Cold hard hatred igniting her mother's forgotten rage, shadows evinced with a darker shade within her mind's eye. The flask her only escape.
On a few occasions, Eva awoke with a smile on her optimistic face; her emerald green eyes would dance with joy. Today, however, the pain had once more awakened the tremors in her frail legs. With saddened eyes, she knew the wheelchair by her bed would make no tracks in her garden today.
She heard the familiar footsteps stealthily approaching from below, getting near. Despite her deteriorating frame, it was a routine she welcomed each morning. Alice, her nurse, stood at the bedroom door, her black leather sole boots almost visible from the crack beneath. Alice's position at the door was revealed by the faint sound of wood bending under stress, as the floorboards yawned and echoed like an old ship at sea. She knocked once, then quickly entered
carrying a tray with a large glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, toast, jelly, and a small paper napkin upon which were two blue pills.
"Good morning, young lady," Alice said cheerily.
"Morning Alice," Eva sighed.
"You mussent worry child, soon you'll have a smile on your pretty little face just like those precious roses of yours."
