Yellow Roses

Mrs. Mallard and her husband lived in a two story brick house with a white picket fence and a beautiful garden.  Everyday at exactly 7:00 A.M they would each wake up and begin their respective days.  At 9:00 A.M Mr. Mallard would leave for work and Mrs. Mallard would begin the chores, sweeping the floor, washing the dishes, dusting the windows, and her favorite; pruning and watering her garden.  She would do these chores until exactly 3:30 P.M and at that point she would call her sisters and her mother; who had recently suffered a heart attack after her second husband was "taken". Ten minutes after saying her goodbyes to her family she would walk to the "Red White and Blue Mart" where she would buy that nights dinner, as she returned home she would wave to the officers that guarded the neighborhood.  From then on she would prepare supper, waiting for Mr. Mallard to come home at 7:00 P.M.  From there they would eat and talk about trivial things, where they would go over Christmas, how the office was running well, and if anyone had been taken lately. At 10:30 P.M Mr. Mallard would drift upstairs and fall asleep, leaving his wife to sit and think about her day and what she had to do tomorrow. Finally at exactly 12:00 A.M midnight Mrs. Mallard would fall asleep on her soft grey arm chair.  But today something seemed off, perhaps Mr. Mallard was nervous for work or maybe there had been another raid over night, whatever it was it gave a strong feeling of unease.  So as Mr. Mallard headed to the office, Mrs. Mallard worked around the house feeling the unease wrap around her.  The longer she worked the more pressure it put on her until she couldn't take it anymore and went out to prune her garden an hour early.  As she walked towards her garden a realization came to her, she had always wanted to plant yellow roses, yellow was her favorite color and roses were her favorite flower after all. But she pushed the idea away quickly, she didn't even know how to plant roses and they would probably ruin the atmosphere of the neighborhood anyway. Discouraged Mrs. Mallard decided that she didn't quite want to work in the garden anymore, nor did she want to call her family today.  Instead perhaps she would go to the "Red White and Blue Mart" and get a fancy dinner to cook or maybe she would just walk around town. As she left the neighborhood Mrs. Mallard waved to the guards and smiled, it was best to be polite to them. Just be luck however the Mart was closed, there were trooper cars surrounding it and she could hear the crys of someone being arrested, she cringed and walked a bit faster past the store.  She didn't stop walking either she just kept walking forward, Mrs. Mallard had heard people being arrested she herself was nearly arrested last year, but she just couldn't shake the screams from her head.  She walked until about dusk where she was stiped by a rusted gate with a large sign that read "NO CITIZENS BEYOND THIS POINT, TRESPASSING IS ILLEGAL AND REASON FOR ARREST" but not wanting to go home just yet Mrs. Mallard walked the border of the gate wondering what was on the other side content with where she was. Until she saw the patch of yellow flowers with nearly thousands of the most vibrant yellow roses in what seemed like the entire universe. Mrs. Mallard was smart but now she was desperate, she longed to hold one of the roses, to feel it's thorns and its pedals. At that instant she knew if she didn't she'd always live the same, heavily guarded and doing chores for the rest of her life.  So taking off her grey coat and black rain boots she started climbing the fence until slowly she reached the very top.  There she looked at the feild under her the yellow Rose's and the lightning bugs, the clover patches she felt a surge of new life. Then she jumped landing on every thorn and crushed by every petal she cried perhaps in fear of what would happen next but maybe if relief for the knowledge she would never dust another window or wave to another officer again.  For hours she sat there thinking up stories and poems pretending each rose was someone she'd lost to the the faceless officers and soldiers.  She could hear their laughter, their voices, and their foot steps but she also smelled stagnant cologne and heard a conversation in gruff angry voices, the officers had caught on. At this point there was nothing she could do she sat in the roses with her eyes closed and waited until they approached her making themselves known by a painful kick in the ribs, "get up Mrs. Mallard" one of them said he had a young voice he couldn't have been more than twenty yet he spoke like he owned the world. Mrs. Mallard still didn't move she wouldn't, even as she heard a gun being loaded, she would stay here with the Rose's even if it ment dying here, she knew what happened to people who broke the law. So even as she bled out in her feild of yellow roses, she would not give them the satisfaction of making her move.