A Single Bud of a Blue Rose
He stands upon the edge of a cliff, looking down at the long drop. His view of the river swept valley below wavers as his vision blurs, though whether from the wind or from his emotions this day, he did not know. Dust and blades of grass dance along his shoes in careless abandon as a sense of vertigo starts to take hold. A single bud of a blue rose, struggling to rise from the ground, distracts and fascinates him as it seems to bow and nod in acknowledgement of his somber mood, knowing that the precipice upon which he stands was more than just literal.
Smiling a somber smile which shows more sadness than joy, he bends down to caress the young bud, though his fingers stop just short of touching, as if in fear that his slightest caress from his hand would snuff the life of this struggling beauty which so captivates him. Instead he sits, the bud between his legs as his feet hang over the edge. Leaning back on his arms, he takes a long breath, released in a sigh.
“Hello little life, have you come to see me die? Or did you just wake up this day for the view?” The flower tilts and bobs, swaying its little head in the small wind as if it curiously listens to his soft voice. The man pauses for a moment, watching the bud expectantly, as if he awaited a reply. When none came forth the man just smiled. “Either way my little friend, you chose a good place to be. The beauty of life all around you, a magnificent view before you... yes, a good place to be indeed.” The little rosebud nods in agreement against the the wind at his words.
“Few are so blessed as you little one. It's taken me to the end of my life to come upon this view, which none could equal. And here you are, getting to view it every day anew, the next day grander than the last so it will never get to be mundane for you, precious little thing.” The rosebud, with a slight blue of its colour peeking through, seems to stand up higher, as if what he said was only its due. “Ah ah ah little flower, don't become so arrogant as to think all belongs to you,” he said wagging his finger at it, to which the rosebud seems to wilt a bit in guilt at the admonishment in his tone. Tilting his face up, the man grew somber once again, pulling his torn and tattered jacket around him, one which had been singed in various places, scars from untold battles and pain.“That was my mistake little one. Hubris, I believe it is called. Blinded by my own ambitions and good intentions...” The man trails off, looking off into the setting sun. The flower sways closer to the man, as if it were waiting for the mans next words, much like a child waiting to hear the end of a bedtime fable.
It was some time later, the little young flower now watching the flight and acrobatics of birds flying down below, attention long since passing, before the man spoke again in a subdued tone, his face becoming resigned. The young bud's head sways back from the playing birds to listen again to the man's tale. “There was a time, little one, that I had hoped to be a force of good in this world. I had the ambition – a little too much, I see now – and I had every opportunity, the resources. Everything that everyone else would have squandered, I would have employed, every opportunity seized! Oh, the ideals and dreams that would have been realized if I had held half the sense of a common man. Perhaps... perhaps if I had heeded the advice which fell on my deaf ears earlier, maybe, just maybe, this could have been avoided. War, revolution, the savagery of man unleashed in all its abandon, all from my actions.”
The little flower bud stands still at this in rapt attention, gripped by this man's words, trembling with the dawning realization that it was baring witness to the last confessions of a wayward soul. The man no longer sees the flower even though his eyes stares vehemently at it, so lost he was instead to the events and dreams from the past, all of which had brought him here.
“I once stood at the head of armies, liberating nations and their peoples from the corrupt little one. I brought leaders together, making peace from blood-feuds, designed treaties for a peace which benefited the common people. Brought jobs, education to what was once a collection of feudal tribes and nations. Not a country did I take for my own, not a nation did I conquer and displace their government to implement my own. Where I went I brought peace trailing behind me, change for the better, like a blade dragged in the sand. Oh, how the people loved me, even attempted to make me a king!” The man threw his head back and laughed, the merriment clearing the lines from his face as the little rosebud dances and jumps along with his joy, his laughter revealing the young handsome man he must have once been before his tragedy happened. All too soon his laughter dies, the rosebud continues to dance along to its tone until the last note fades.
“My friends – of which I had a lot back then – tried to warn me that I was moving too fast, that I was making enemies of those I could ill afford to. Warned me up until the end of the discontent of those I was wresting power from, taking all that they knew and breaking it to my own view of the world. Warned me even of the nations I had not brought to me starting to unify against me. To which I scoffed - oh foolishly I scoffed! - thinking I was safe with little fail-safes and contingency plans Thinking my armies would stay loyal, the people as well, for who would willingly abandon a better life and peace for subjugation? Ah, little flower, I see you droop, growing weary of my tale. I'll keep the rest short and allow you to return to your unburdened play and this wondrous scene spread before you, instead of wilting you with my overlong tale.” The man, while talking, had drawn patterns in the dirt around him though he remains unaware of the scenes and long dead faces he had unwittingly drew. The rosebud dances on in the failing light, unconcerned of the illustrations before it.
Drawing his knees up to his chest, the man continues his tale, his hands gesturing as he speaks. “Needless to say, little one, that though I was on a mission to bring peace, I brought war like a crashing tide. Those I had ignored revolted, and it was my very friends, those whom had warned me of my folly, did strike out at me, taking me by surprise, using the command of my various armies foolishly given to them over many campaigns and services carried out for me. Like a tempest of fire came their betrayal, forcing me to be disposed by those earlier whom would have made me king. The signs where there, their concerns, I see now my little friend, where the ones they themselves held.” The rosebud, which was swaying in the breeze, gave a little nod of agreement, at which the man gives a small sad smile.
“Alas, even a little flower like yourself could see what I did not. Man can learn a lot about themselves if they took patience and wisdom like you my little one.” The flower gave another little bow, somewhat cheekily and playfully, to which the man smiled at once again at it's innocent play.
“My friends, or former friends I should say, thought the matter was over and done of me, thinking me too defeated to return. They where wrong. I had retained a part of my army and a segment of the common people who held love for me still. In stinging pride and feeling wronged to the deepest pit of my soul, I let my anger reign free. I headed advice from those who sought retribution instead of peace from perceived wrongs. I built my army anew and marched it to the capital where my former friends-turned-betrayers lay in rule over my confederation of nations. They met me and, due to some vestige of the man I once was, I decided to offer parlay with them.” The man looks at the flower bud with a pain filled intensity, beseeching his single tiny audience member. “Even at that point, with all my feelings of betrayal, I still tried to choose peace,” his tone took on a feverish tone as he spoke now, eyes harrowed and pleading as he tried to find a sense of redemption from this single dancing rose bud.
His eyes close as the bud sways back and forth, like an admonishing finger, still silent, accusing, as the mans tears finally begin to flow. He tries to continue, failing at first to find the words before they force themselves out from his battered and bared soul.
“Here is where I turn my back on who I once was,” he adverts his gaze from the flower bud, unable to look anymore upon its innocent purity, reminding him of his once innocent soul. “Under the white flag of negotiation, my temper, my hurt, my stinging pride, I could not accept... I could not... they wanted-” a moment of silence stretches here as the fallen man's words fail. His haunted eyes stare off into the colours of the sunset, seeing that the sun was nearly past the horizon into night, as the tears show brightly on his face.
“I could not accept that they would deny what I thought was my right, that they would keep me from my dreams and ambitions. They demanded my surrender and exile. They even, in my hurt little world, demanded me surrender my dreams to them. It was too much, my innocent little rose, to give up my all. In my blinded hate I broke the sacred pact and struck out, breaking the white flag's truce, slaying as many as I could in my madness. The horror of my actions that I then felt, that was reflected in my former friends eyes... I can scarce bring myself to remember, let alone convey. My fall... my betrayal was complete. No more was I the man I once claimed to be, no more was I a beacon of peace.” The man grasps his head in his hands, as if he could hide himself from his past, curling up upon the dirt by the rose, obscuring the drawings he previously wrought upon the ground as the flower trembles and sways in fear, as if trying to escape this man's dangerously blind thrashing. Finally, he stills, his confession drawing him to speak, too powerful a force his conscious was to allow him to remain silent. “A great war has started, with all but a few of my friends lay slain by my own blood stained hands. All of my work was broken in that instant. For where I once brought peace now strife and anguish was bartered in blood. And I, I was at the helm, even as the horror of what I had done dawned on me in the instant I struck. My actions brought death and pain, war and agony that will spread.”
The rosebud, recovered from his brush of fear, stands listening in swaying silence once again. The mans hands drop away from his head, his face still wet from tears that had ceased to flow, his voice, which started strong and somber is now scratchy and weak, empty, barely a croak form the spent emotions. “I fled that day, into the chaos of a battle that started. How I survived, I do not know. I do not even think I expected to. For weeks I travelled, in a haze, forcing myself to witness the end of all I was, all I've accomplished. Everywhere I went signs of war and chaos where starting to spread. Riots rose, revolts started, Civil wars brewed. The illusions and dreams I once wove for myself crumbled.” The rose bud softly leans in to capture his words, knowing he was coming – finally – to the end of his somber tale.
“I saved those I could, tried to find redemption in the small actions of good I could do. But my past chased me, like demons and phantasms, in the eyes of those whom had suffered, those which I had tried to save. For I knew, in their eyes, I was the monster that took from them, their lives, their loved ones. Their hope. I fled, from cities and towns, exiling myself from all people and living things. I wandered, lost within myself, trying to find the end of where my path will take me. And now, I find myself here, little rose.” The man finally looks upon his small audience of one, noticing it drooping down, as if about to fall asleep.
The man's fingers, in a gesture as gentle as he's ever done, raises the flower to stand upright with trembling fingers. “Fret not little one, my sad tale is at an end, and soon my path shall be as well.” Releasing the flower, pleased to see it dance again in the slight breeze, the man looks into the setting sun, it's slight sliver about to fade away. Nodding to himself, he smiles, feeling a peace coming over him as he decides on how he will see the end of his path. Standing up, mindful of this noble little rosebud dancing in the breeze with not a worry or thought, he dusts off the dirt from his pants. Together, they watch the last setting of the sun. And as the last rays of the sun fades, so does the man, his lonely path long since taken.
Long after night's fall and dawn rising, the rose does, as it ever did before, dance and sway in the gentle breeze, uncaring and free as it enjoys it's view. Only a pair of bootprints leading to the edge of the cliff remains of the wayward traveller who once stood upon the precipice, enjoying the view and sharing his somber tale with a little blue dancing rosebud.
