When she was young, there had been small, fragile roses all around. Her mother had planted them, a series of delicate blooms of pastel that circled up and down and around the back of their patio, planted in tiny clay pots and wrapping their prickly vines tightly over and through white picket fencing. They were maybe small enough to fit into the palm of her four year old hand, little fairy flowers in tints of pink, baby yellow, and pearl. The patio had been a perfect place for tea parties, or any game to be played alone with one's imagination for company. Her older sister would sometimes sit next to her, drinking tea made of fruit juice, eating rice crackers broken in half and served on porcelain plates no bigger than the face of her father's watch.
She would think that the flowers were all alive and thinking, maybe watching the girl with the bright orange pigtails as she sat in their midst and watched them sway gently in the wind. Flower dances. The flowers danced easy waltzes with their fringed and crisp green leaves, once or twice losing a petal in the process. This, of course, wouldn't hurt the flowers because the outer petals were like hair or clothes. She talked to them at times, but only when she was alone. She could imagine that they spoke back, in a way.
Once or twice she caught herself peeking inside a flower, sifting through the layers of velvety petals to see the 'face' of the flower, a tiny, yellow thing fuzzy with seeds and pollen. She'd thought that the flower should have eyes.
In the summer, she'd seen a tiny hole in the side of a pale pink flower, nearly perfectly round and beginning to brown around the edges. It looked like a small gunshot or a burn, drilling into the heart of the rose. It had frightened her enough that she backed away, eyes wide, as if she was expecting the flower to bleed or maybe scream, a tinny little sound hardly loud enough to hear. And of course it did no such thing.
When she neared it, peeking through that hole, she was shocked and dismayed to discover that it went straight through the outer petals, leading slowly into the heart of the rose. Tiny ragged holes edged the petals around it. She'd pulled the ravaged petals back, carefully, layer by layer, watching the hole get larger with each petal pulled aside, until she reached the golden heart of the rose. There, nestled against the wall of petals like a baby carved out of precious stone, was a metallic green beetle. Its mandibles were firmly locked on a petal, its legs digging into soft pink and fuzzy yellow with a ferocious possessiveness.
She'd sat there, staring at the intruder with a faint disgust mixed with fascination, at this moving ornament of a beetle that had chewed its way through to the heart of the flower. Why had the rose let it in? She poked the beetle with a tiny child's finger, watching it shift and then clamp on more tightly. Was it because it was so pretty? Did the flower try to waltz with the beetle as it had with the leaves? And as they danced, did the rose feel it when the beetle chewed and tore its way into the petals?
She'd cried that day, showed the flower and beetle to her mother, who crunched the beetle beneath the heel of her shoe, spreading glittering bits of shell and green-yellow bug intestine on the white cement. Her mother told her it was a parasite, a word too big for her to understand at that age. Somehow she'd understood what it meant, though. The bug would stay in the rose, very slowly eating it away until there was nothing left but the naked center.
Spray was brought out of the shed behind the vegetable garden, drizzled over the roses like an acid scented rain. Her mother told her it was perfume that the bugs didn't like, to keep them away from spoiling the flowers again. She told her not to cry any longer, that there wouldn't be any more of the beetles in the flowers. But after her mother left, she'd continued her quiet sobs. And it wasn't only the rose she'd been crying for, the poor rose being torn apart by its beautiful friend.
She'd been crying for the beetle as well. The sad little beetle that lived to destroy what it loved. She couldn't bring herself to hate it for hurting that flower.
She would think that the flowers were all alive and thinking, maybe watching the girl with the bright orange pigtails as she sat in their midst and watched them sway gently in the wind. Flower dances. The flowers danced easy waltzes with their fringed and crisp green leaves, once or twice losing a petal in the process. This, of course, wouldn't hurt the flowers because the outer petals were like hair or clothes. She talked to them at times, but only when she was alone. She could imagine that they spoke back, in a way.
Once or twice she caught herself peeking inside a flower, sifting through the layers of velvety petals to see the 'face' of the flower, a tiny, yellow thing fuzzy with seeds and pollen. She'd thought that the flower should have eyes.
In the summer, she'd seen a tiny hole in the side of a pale pink flower, nearly perfectly round and beginning to brown around the edges. It looked like a small gunshot or a burn, drilling into the heart of the rose. It had frightened her enough that she backed away, eyes wide, as if she was expecting the flower to bleed or maybe scream, a tinny little sound hardly loud enough to hear. And of course it did no such thing.
When she neared it, peeking through that hole, she was shocked and dismayed to discover that it went straight through the outer petals, leading slowly into the heart of the rose. Tiny ragged holes edged the petals around it. She'd pulled the ravaged petals back, carefully, layer by layer, watching the hole get larger with each petal pulled aside, until she reached the golden heart of the rose. There, nestled against the wall of petals like a baby carved out of precious stone, was a metallic green beetle. Its mandibles were firmly locked on a petal, its legs digging into soft pink and fuzzy yellow with a ferocious possessiveness.
She'd sat there, staring at the intruder with a faint disgust mixed with fascination, at this moving ornament of a beetle that had chewed its way through to the heart of the flower. Why had the rose let it in? She poked the beetle with a tiny child's finger, watching it shift and then clamp on more tightly. Was it because it was so pretty? Did the flower try to waltz with the beetle as it had with the leaves? And as they danced, did the rose feel it when the beetle chewed and tore its way into the petals?
She'd cried that day, showed the flower and beetle to her mother, who crunched the beetle beneath the heel of her shoe, spreading glittering bits of shell and green-yellow bug intestine on the white cement. Her mother told her it was a parasite, a word too big for her to understand at that age. Somehow she'd understood what it meant, though. The bug would stay in the rose, very slowly eating it away until there was nothing left but the naked center.
Spray was brought out of the shed behind the vegetable garden, drizzled over the roses like an acid scented rain. Her mother told her it was perfume that the bugs didn't like, to keep them away from spoiling the flowers again. She told her not to cry any longer, that there wouldn't be any more of the beetles in the flowers. But after her mother left, she'd continued her quiet sobs. And it wasn't only the rose she'd been crying for, the poor rose being torn apart by its beautiful friend.
She'd been crying for the beetle as well. The sad little beetle that lived to destroy what it loved. She couldn't bring herself to hate it for hurting that flower.