The Decadium

The world is a white haze, blurry and faded like an old photograph. There's no black and no white, just shades of grey, though there is color in the faces and clothes of the people, as if a child clumsily colored them in. Color, life, as imperfect as it is. I see faces. A young man, with scarlet-stained hair and russet-brown eyes, a white hospital bed… Strange, though, how the hospitals are always white, as pure white as snow, when they should be black, to welcome those that enter and never leave. Without my acquiescence, the playback starts again, like a tape on rewind, though there is no one at the controls.

A memory? A dream? I can't really tell.

I remember him. My Danna, Sasori-kun. I was maybe five or six years old at the time, and my mind had been too thickly obscured with shaking sobs to process any of his words. Little did I know that they would be the last I ever heard of him. All I remember were the sounds of my name being spoken, over and over again, and his last word. Goodbye. Goodbye? That's no way to end it. No way to die. Then, the heart monitor started to scream, and so did I. The hellish perfume of copper and iron drowned me and I broke. Shattered.

Ten years later, I haven't forgotten. I dare not forget.

There was, however, something that was unwittingly passed into my hands on that very day. The only item left to me in my Danna's will. I received it the day following his death, wrapped in crinkly tissue paper. A small vase containing a single rose in full bloom, with a glass cup placed over it to protect it. A tiny, crimson flower, pale and frail and fragile, just like me, stripped of its thorns, petals radiating with a soft, silvery sheen. I knew at that moment, that this flower was something not of this world, something rare. A decadium, I later found out it was called, a flower that blossoms every ten years. How long Sasori-kun had kept it, or how he had attained it, was kept a mystery to me. However, to me, at least, it matter naught. Ten years had passed since my Danna's death. Ten years since the last blossoming of the decadium. It had been all I had been living for. One moment, just like the moment I watched his eyes close. One moment.

It was a shame, at least for me, to admit, that the decadium had been all that had kept me alive all these years. I wanted to see it blossom, I wanted to smell it, to touch it, and that strange and wistful yearning curled up inside me had given me a reason to live, through the murky bog of depression, through the grim shadows and shady nettles that waited to devour me. Ten years more to live. A reason to stay alive.

But now, as the moment neared and my heartbeat grew louder inside my chest, I started to fear. It is a queer feeling, of course, when you've waited for so very long for something, and then it comes, and the anticipation and nervousness and fear has built up inside you for so many years, and you dread the moment, as if it is the chiming of your death bell! How excited you are, up until the moment it happens, when you fear that it will be unbearably revolting for some reason, or that it wasn't what you thought it would be; or maybe that it wasn't as good as you thought it would be.

However, for me, there was no turning back; if there was, then to what end? Those years of waiting, crying, yearning, longing for this rose to bloom, wasted, and lived in vain? It was something horrid, an end unthinkable to me. So I watched, and the rose began to bloom.

It was a slight thing; and I watched as the petals started to shimmer with a silvery sheen, like the silken streams on a sunny day. The scene unfolded itself ever so slowly, like a dream, a movie in slow motion.

The petals started to unfurl, like so many delicate crimson fingers, unwrapping themselves from the bud to the tempo of a fluttering heartbeat dancing in my chest. The movement itself was tantalizing, hypnotic, and I could not tear my eyes away from its entrancing magic. The petals were all of the same beautiful shape, and I feared that nothing would ever frame its flawless symmetry. Oh, the flower. How strange of a color it was. It was scarlet, a deep, vibrating, warm scarlet, but it seemed almost too red for a rose. Its color could only be matched by the coppery, metallic salvation that had taken my Danna's life. The rose was red, as red as blood. There was no other way to put it.

As each petal flicked slightly open and turned its unseen face upwards towards the sky, the air was suddenly perfumed with a dense, rich scent. It immediately flooded my senses and drowned me in its warmth... I had no fear, though, because the scent was comforting to me, and held the alluring possibility of fulfilling its aesthetic promise. It was similar to that of a rose, and yet… it held more than that, it held more meaning… as if it were the scent of time, painful, agonizing heartbeats and seconds and days and moons, now in its undiluted, pure, syrupy-sweet form.

It was tormenting, both to my body and to my soul, watching this rose, that would lay dead and asleep for another ten years, bloom, before my very eyes.

At the same time, I was held captive by the chimerical sparkle of the crimson flower. I wanted to touch it. I wanted to feel the silk of the petals under my fingers; I wanted to ravish it with my hands.

But then, oh, what would happen? Would I scar it? Would the entire flower fracture and break under my careless, human touch? It all seemed too possible, and yet… my body ached with the need to indulge my senses in this flower. I had to touch it. If I failed to meet my own request, then, I would have to wait another ten, long, torturous years, just to see it again.

In that instant, my heart screamed out against me; and yet, my body betrayed it, and my fingers lurched forward, lashing out like the talons of the hawk.

As soon as my hand found its rest against the fragile blossom, it seemed to shudder, as if shivering under my touch.

Then, the world suddenly froze, and the rose shattered.

It was a brief, frightening moment, as I saw the petals being torn away and stripped from the bud by an unseen, unknown wind. The world followed with it, and the air swiftly swirled above me, howling and laughing at me. I grasped for the petals, but there was nothing there, for the blossoms had dissolved and crushed into silver sand. The frail stem withered and melted to dust as well, and I watched in horrified fascination as the silver slipped out of my fingers and entered the twirling gale. The wind! It choked me, and threatened to put an end to me. But there was no struggle, no motion of rebellion from my body. Why would I try? I had been defeated. I had no energy, even, to cry or grieve. And for what? The rose, it had been nothing! Nothing but dust. I had lived just to see that rose bloom; and now it had died, hence, so should I.

There was, however, something more to the rose. I saw it in the next heartbeat: a faded, yellowed, scrap of parchment, half buried in the sand. My muscles made a weak, last attempt and my fingers groped amidst the silver sand until it had possession of the note.

As soon as I had accomplished this, the winds faded and left me, gone to disturb and dishevel some other empty field.

Hands and heart trembling uncontrollably, I unfolded the paper.

The words were written in Sasori-kun's writing. I could recognize the slender shapes, curled and streaming across the page. Symbols translated into thoughts, and my Danna's voice rang softly in my head, somewhere far beyond my reality, tinkling like tiny silver bells carried across a dying autumn wind:

What time once tore apart,

Would never leave his heart.

Eternally bound to feel,

What time would also heal.

Emotions climb and fall,

But in the end and after all,

His heart has found its rightful keeper,

The love within could not run deeper.

My heart thumped painfully in my chest, and my eyes burned as I gripped the note loosely between shaking fingers. So there had been something more. The decadium was more than just what my eyes saw as a rose. It had been… a gift, from my Danna. He had written the poem, for me, in full knowledge that I would live for this moment ten years later, that I would destroy the rose, that I would find and read the note. Had he also known… that I would be this brave?

I sighed softly and folded the note, slipping it into my pocket.

"Goodbye," I whispered, to the decadium, to my Sasori-kun, to myself. Goodbye to weakness and fear. I blinked, and the world faded into a shimmering haze of silver.

With some understanding I realized that I had been of blood with the rose, that I had become something fragile to the world, a calypso, a daydream, a winter leaf, a spider's web, a butterfly. How strange is it, then, when the rose dies before your eyes, and you suddenly see yourself, with your will, your dreams, and your heart, being torn away from you like so many crimson petals…

It was also strange, then, to feel the world lighten slightly around you, and to feel your heart free itself and sing, like the wonderful, airborne escape of the caged bird! If this be a lesson taught, then, let it be always close to my heart and burned in my memory, as is the sight of a silvery forest and the comforting, warm words of my Sasori no Danna. Ah, but also, if this is of any importance, in word or deed, to the wellbeing and emotional happiness of another, then let it be told again; thus, I leave to my memories what my past has broken, and leave to my dreams what my destiny foretells.

The End

Helloooo there =D Didja like it? This is mah 10th story, so HURRAH ME!!! And thanks to all my faithful readers!!! 333 This was written for my Literature Fair (w/names changed of course ^^), but I thought this would be sooooo sweet from Deidara's point of view. The style is more old-fashioned, like Edgar Allen Poe, or Fredrick Douglass. Hope you enjoyed, though!!! I thought this was really sweet, so of course, I had to do this for Valentine's Day. SasoDei forever!!! Haha =] Anyways, please leave a review, I would lovelovelove it!!! Thanks sooooo much!!! ^_____^

~Gabrielle (Springroll ^^)