To you, I sing across the moon

24. a million times from death (short story)

AN: Originally meant to be a short poem, but then it escalated. I blame rereading old quasi-horror and fairy-tales. Also - references!

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There once was an oasis in the middle of nowhere.

When I first saw that garden, I said, "What an odd place. Why a forest?" You never gave an answer.

Those roses were strange. They should have been wild, with small flowers and unruly roots, growing through concrete.

Instead, they had more heads than a hydra, enormous red mouths, overflowing with petals. Beautiful from the distance. Up close - uncanny. They were so luxurious, so close to perfection that they could only be fake. They should have been your pride and joy, yet you paid them no mind.

"Let's cut them." And there was such resignation in your voice that I didn't protest.

Only kneeled before them and stretched out a hand. The roses seemed to lean it and lie their too-heavy heads on my palm. As soon as they did though, they collapsed in themselves and the petals spilled out like the sinews of a dead heart. Then only, did I notice - the roses were a deep burgundy. I dug into the rosebush, the thorns pricking me in warning. Yet I managed to unearth them.

Black roses hiding behind their redder companions. Yet how curious. When I snipped them with the scissors you so graciously provided, they didn't spill. They were dead but had kept their form in a peculiar case of flowery rigor mortis.

"Let's bury them." I turned slightly and saw you standing with a dirty shovel, next to a fresh grave.

So I resigned. But not before embracing these doomed darlings. Crushing them in my love, giving them the warmest smile, even as they cut my skin and greedily drank my blood. They deserved some parting affection. Yet how curious. I thought they were answering. Giggling. 'Ticklish, ticklish, we are so ticklish'. I thought they were screaming. But what?

I stood up and they stayed in my arms - roses and thorns and leaves and roots.

"Put them there." I did.

I let them go and, what should have been a beatific sea, looked like the carcass of a dead body, which had collapsed into parts.

"Now." I was about to turn, when- "Let's end this."

I think I was struck with the shovel, but it might have been your words, too.

The roses broke my fall. I looked up only to see your dispassionate face. You stood there, stared at your work and then buried us.

I had almost resigned. But the roses seemed up to something. They whispered and hissed, and one petal flew out through a small opening, past your face. Again, you paid it no mind.

***

Night fell.

I was half-asleep in the grave, when it happened. The roses had been quiet for a while, and now they re-surfaced. They grew and grew, gargantuan abominations, with spears for thorns and the same luxurious flowers, only larger than life. They crawled and gnawed their way out, and, before I could fathom what the earthquake was, they had found a way out and had grown taller than the forest.

One of them, the one that had held onto me with monstrous strength, spilled out now and I saw, through the crimson drapes, a night sky.

'We are free, free!' - they sang their triumph.

'Run, dear, run, before the beast comes back.' - the one who held me whispered urgently. Yet I was transfixed. Breathless from the air, drunk on freedom.

'Run run run!' - she sang and threw me up.

The moon, who was only a half tonight, leaned down, hooked me on, straightened and spun around. Once. Twice. And threw me off and onto the devil's back.

The devil shrieked in surprise, and, grumbling than he was only after stars, threw me over his back. This time, I landed on the witch's broom. She was none too happy, her load was also heavy (contraband stars, and she had set her eyes on the moon too), but she sighed and grumbled and set me off in a field.

I stood up, finally, and went through the tall maize to the other side. The choices were: an asphalt road, too tall to climb, and a field of sunflowers, too far to reach.

I chose neither.

Now I walk in between, hiding from incoming cars and lost hikers.

Yet, this is better than staying in that mausoleum with you.

I won't die quietly, to make you happy. I won't become grateful fertilizer.
I won't nourish dead roses.

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