Roses

A new day in the metropolitan city. Everyone is carrying burdens of their day before the day loads them on their shoulders; assuming burdens existed yet. In fact what you assume affects how you feel.

I started my day with cool music and hot coffee... Relaxed mind and energized spirit, minding my own business... Though the roads seemed like a wide parking lot spread across the city, I leaned my back to my car chair and spent quality time pampering my senses with music while enjoying my hazelnut-flavored coffee taste and aroma.

Across the sidewalks was that girl. Every morning I see her standing there, around the same spot, about the same time, for few days so far. About early twenties, with gypsy looks, dressed in old stained dress and a pair of old leather colorless shoes, with bed hair and dusty face that just woke up from restless sleep. Her face was covered with days of weariness and her colorful eyes conveyed long sleepless nights. Her arched posture expressed the load she bared on her shoulders and the despair of a drowning soul... She was looking at the passerby crowds, looking for something, looking for someone, looking for herself... She was holding few roses in her arms, looking for a buyer who would empathize with few pennies. Someone who dares to buy a rose. O' little girl! Who would buy your roses? Why would anyone buy your roses? Though, she sells her roses cheap to every passerby willing to offer her the pennies.

A stream of thoughts was flowing in me while watching that scene. Sometimes we are in that little girl's shoes. While we may feel burdened through our days we grow desperate for something to feed our starving hearts and quench our thirsty souls. We sell our roses but we're never offered them. People might see our faces, but not what may be going-on in our hearts and boiling in our guts. While we smile and laugh to hide mountains of worry and troubled confusions. We are judged by the stained dress that barely covers the body from cold nights of grief, but fail to regard our human inside.

She passed by each car trying to earn sympathy from each and every car rider, until it was my turn. She came at my car and tapped on my window. She seemed desperate for selling her roses, down-spirited expecting no answer from me though. She was trying to draw back her hair that shaded her eyes, nose and lips behind her ears using one hand, while holding the roses with the other. She leaned on the car window with her free hand where she placed her forehead. She murmured words of persuasive sympathy to get my heart tangled and buy a rose from her… I looked at her behind my shades while dropping down the car window. I took off the shades and gazed at her. She seemed hungry; hungry for being someone, someone to be looked at and noticed in the mindless crowds of every day traffic.

She extended her hand towards me and offered me a naked shortened thorns-clipped rose and said: “Sir, would you buy roses to the one you love?” I smiled. She made me smile, a bitter smile. I thought to myself, you are offering me a rose to make it up for the one I love, while you barely get pitied mindlessly. Before I took the rose from her, I paid her. Then, I lifted the rose between the tips of her fingers, had a glimpse of its scent then placed it on the side of her face, to fix her hair that has been bothering her for while by that time. Her amazement blended with astonishment while watching me putting her hair into place via the rose. A roses-seller that was never offered a rose before. Her eyes grew wider and her mouth was released open. Her eyes looked in the direction of the rose while reaching her hand to feel it in her hair, as if she didn't believe what has just happened, making sure that this was real. When she was sure of it, she stretched a wide smile that shines the day and blushed her cheeks while looking back at me as if she was asking, “Was this  for me?”

“A rose for the rose.” I said, while my eyes were alternating between her eyes and the rose. Her silence was full of words, and unorganised thoughts of joy. Excited, though she only replied modestly “Thanks Sir.” But I can still hear those words of silence on her face.

Now, lights just went green. Time to get my wheels rolling.

“Have a lovely day young lady.” I said. Then I stirred through the flow of traffic. In the rear mirror I can still see her, crossing the street back to the sidewalk hopping lightly with joy, while her hand is still clinging to the rose…

 

 

Andy.