The Last Rose

A short story I wrote a couple of years back. Its one of my favourite pieces. It's about a girl named Judith and how she discovers that "a thing of beauty is a joy forever"

The night was cold. Judith made her way down a empty street. It was past midnight a cold wind was blowing. She walked with a brisk pace and pulled her jacket over her tightly. She was returning from a party and she overstayed by an hour. Worried about what her mother would tell her when she got home, she quickened her pace. She walked down a dimly lit street and entered a small alleyway. After walking a small distance, she came across a group of guys huddled by a fire. On seeing her, all of them stood up and gave each other winks and one even whistled. Judith's quick pace turned in a semi-run as she took a corner. Hurried footsteps behind her confirmed that she was being followed. She began to run and so did they.

At times like this, the world becomes a very different place altogether. Known streets become unknown, signs, buildings and people change and look alien and deformed, the murkiness and darkness of the world descends upon the shoulders. And it was no exception for Judith. With rapid breaths she ran and ran deeper and deeper into the twisted alley. She took another sharp turn and her heel broke and she fell towards the ground. Waiting for the feeling of rough asphalt on her face, she closed her eyes and braced herself. But the pain never came and she kept falling...falling..falling...

 

Judith woke up to the sounds of cars honking and crowd noises. she sat up and saw the she was sitting on a cobbled pavement. She turned back to see the alley but a solid brick wall was in its place instead.She stood up and looked around her, trying to figure out where she was. It was a very crowded road. Cars and buses were uncountable. And even more uncountable than that was the number of people on the pavements and the road itself. No one looked at Judith or each other for that matter. The entire road was in shades of black, white and a dull grey. The was no warmth or anything in this place. No one was laughing or even smiling. Their faces were expressionless. There was no hint of any shade of green, red, blue or any other color. There were no animals or birds. The sky was black with smoke. Judith realized this was a place where Nature didn't exist anymore. Here, Nature had no child to smile from, no birds to fly in and no trees to grow in. Judith felt suffocated and she turned away.

 

And then she saw it. Growing right in the middle of the crowded road, was a bright red rose. It was reddest of the  reddest rose she had seen. Redder than any rose she had seen. She was overjoyed to see it, maybe because it was the only thing that had life. Suddenly, she heard a bus horn and looked down the street. The bus was coming straight at the rose, which was in the way of its massive wheels. She jumped out on the road without thinking and curled up in front of the rose, to protect it. She closed her eyes as the horn blared and blared. She waited for the pain to hit her, but nothing happened. She opened her eyes and saw the bus going right through her. The rose was safe in front of her. Judith realized that she was like a ghost in this world. No one could hear her, see her or touch her. She looked at the rose and she was filled with an unexplainable happiness.

 

"That's the last rose miss." a small voice said behind her, from the pavement. Judith looked up and saw a small boy standing there. He was very pale and his eyes had dark circles around them. He looked very sick.

"Its the last rose in this world." he said in a frail voice, "And when it dies, so will I and so will our world.."

Before Judith could say anything, the boy vanished and so did the entire crowded road. She was standing in the darkness and the only thing that was there was the rose. Suddenly the rose began to wither. Its petals lost its moisture and fell of.

"No...no.." whispered Judith and knelt down by it, holding up the falling petals with her hands but the rose died and turned to dust in her hands.

 

Judith woke up and sat upright in her bed. She was in her room. She took a deep breath and wiped the sweat from her forehead. She got up and opened the small window in her room to see the city skyline. The sky was grey with clouds. She looked down at her window sill and on it was a small pot with the reddest of the reddest rose she had ever seen. On the sides of the pot, engraved in her mum's handwriting, was "A thing of beauty is a joy forever."

 

Judith smiled and looked up at the sky as a ray of sunlight burst through the clouds

Author's Note

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