A Single Rose

A Single Rose

Droplets cascaded upon his head, his damp hair falling heavily into his eyes as he walked down the sidewalk. Passing people with umbrellas; letting the vehicles on the road splash him as he drove by. He counted the cracks in the concrete as he walked and stared at the ground before him. He didn’t need to watch where he was going. His feet seemed to carry him, every step taking him along another familiar path. His sneakers were soaked, along with a good portion of his pant leg; he could no longer feel the pitter patter of the spring rain on his shoulders, or the top of his head. A single rose drooped in his hand, rivulets of water passing from his fingers to the warm red petals.

A single rose.

He stopped, still staring at the ground. The earth beneath him seemed to swell in his vision, his heart beating faster and his stomach feeling queasy. Gravel crunched under his feet as he turned, and he lifted his head to the gates of the place his feet had brought him; the same place they had brought him every day for the last week. He looked up to the metal work above the entrance that displayed:

Hayville Cemetery.

A deep breath and his legs carried on. The smell of freshly wet grass and old earth filled his nostrils, making memories flutter in his mind; butterflies with restless wings. Walking down the gravel path, he passed through the grave stones. Monuments to a long forgotten person’s life on every side, the only proof that once a person by this name or that had existed…

The air was crisp, and the sun shone. He stood beside his mother, hearing the choked sobs and sniffles of the crowd around him. “We are gathered here today to mourn the death…“ His ears seemed to cut out every sound as he stared at the soft brown wood of the coffin. Sunlight reflected off its surface…

He turned to the left, grass squishing underneath his feet. He walked over mounds of dirt, fully aware that he was standing over top of bodies that had been laid to rest for eternity. Familiar head stones passed him in his peripheral vision…

He stepped forward, a single red rose in his hand. She had said she loved the roses in his mother’s garden, and they had often spent the afternoon sitting beside them. “I love the smell,” she had said. He looked down at the coffin, seeing the grain in perfect detail. He laid the rose on top of it, and let his hand rest of the warm surface for a moment…

He stopped. At his feet were the various remnants of seven roses, wilted or in the stages of their slow decomposing. He knelt down, his knees squishing in the wet soft earth, and placed the rose in his hand at the foot of the head stone. He looked up at it, reading the name engraved into the stone; another monument to sit here forever, for eternity.

He bent down close to the coffin, and pressed his lips lightly to the warm varnished surface.
“I love you…”

He placed his hands on the top of the stone, and pressed his lips to the cold granite.
“I love you,” he said.
He stood and turned away, walking back the way he had come; back to the streets where people would walk around him, where cars would drive past, where he would feel numb.
Behind him, eight roses lied before the monument of his love. A single rose was lying atop the wilted, alone.