Violets are blue, and roses are... roadkill?
Jun. 19, 2010 6:29 pm
Updated: Jun. 20, 2010 5:30 am
Summer, Day 10:
Today my dad left on his business trip to Central Asia. He'll be gone for a whole week, and though he's promised to email every day, the house is going to be awfully quiet. My brother is still in touring Europe with friends in post-graduation glee, so it's
just going to be me and the mom holding up the fort. We decided to beat the empty-nest shivers with a trip to our favorite indian restaurant. Who needs a tub of chocolate ice cream when you've got fresh, piping hot naan and sweet mango lasis?
On our drive downtown, however, we passed something unusual on the road. No, not a bloodied possum or pile of garbage, but something surprisingly pleasant. As we drove by and I fiddled with the ipod's adapter, a flash of yellow caught my eye. "Wait, what was
that?" I asked. We weren't in a huge hurry or on a particularly busy road, so mom agreed to put the car in reverse and back up a block for further inspection. When I saw what it was, a silly impulse forced me to open the car door and scoop it up. After all,
what I had spotted turned out to be a perfectly intact bouquet of yellow roses. The stems' tips were still moist, and I quickly shoved them into the can of pelegrino I'd been drinking from.
I can't help but wonder where these flowers came from. What were they doing ruffled up and abandoned in the middle of the road? And how had they not been completely flattened before our little hundai came puttering along? Perhaps a disgruntled Jane had finally
told Harold that she'd found his late night texts to her sister across town. She'd thrown his peace offering into the street, and stormed back into her house, dramatically flailing her arms in despair. Or maybe Ruth and Bob were just getting back from the
hospitol after the birth of their first baby girl. As Bob tried to concentrate at the wheel, Ruth clumsily balanced the gifts that friends and family had bestowed on the proud parents. Tired from getting too little sleep in the maternity ward, her clutch on
that last little bouquet had loosened, and the roses dropped out of the open car window, lost forever.
One could speculate endlessly about the origins of those roses. They're currently inhabiting a ceramic vase on my kitchen windowsill, where the light of the setting sun will hit them just so. It's moments like these when I wish I had a camera. Note to self:
If I ever send someone flowers, I will attach a self-explanatory card. Or on second thought, I won't. Some things are better left to the imagination.
