A/N: Ahh, metaphors, how I hate thee. This next drabble's my pathetic attempt at writing metaphor (well, in this particular case, anyway). If I'm as horrible as I think I am, then I think it's best to say that the flower actually serves as a metaphor for two separate but closely connected things. Er. Yeah.

If anyone's interested, I got over the block I had for theme #8. Well. Kind of.

P.S. I realize the short chapters are a bit annoying, but there are going to be fifty-two of these guys so... Plus, I find I work a lot better in these conditions, which means more updates so yay. :D

P.P.S. A big thanks to everybody who reviewed. Honestly, I luff you guys. You're all quite possibly the only reason I keep trying. X3

Here's hoping I don't disappoint. (sweatdrop)

Crazy Little Thing
By JleeBean

7. Snow falling on corpses.

There's a flower Kagura keeps outside her apartment window. It was the type of flower that most people would stop to admire for one moment, then move on with whatever it was they were doing the next. It was bright red and open like the first flower on earth, but other than that, it was nothing special. It was a flower one could find in the side of the road or growing along an old, abandoned house. It was common, it was plain, and it was terribly superficial.

But Kagura liked to think there was more to this flower than a passing glance would give. She liked to believe that beneath the velvety petals and flashy color, there was a depth, a something that made the flower more than just a flower. She dared to hope that underneath the underneath, it was unique, it was sincere, it was real.

She came across it one December morning as she was walking home and she saw it, nearly smothered from the blankets of snow. She took it home with the sole intention of nurturing it because she couldn't, wouldn't, allow it to die. She tried, worked so hard to be gentle until her eyes cried and her heart ached, but the little flower wouldn't last for more than the trip home. The flower had been far too fragile, and her hands, still as she forced them to be, were a delicate mess of unbidden care made tremulous by selfishness and guilt.

She had crushed it before she even reached the door.

And she cried with such fury and pain that her eyes were swollen and her heart broke a second time. Why? she'd screamed, Why? The flower hadn't answered her and she cried again because she realized she probably didn't want to know.

When she was finished and her eyes had no more tears left to shed, she placed the flower atop her windowsill. She watched as the snow slowly fell over it like powdered sugar on pancakes, and stood there until it was completely covered, buried in the snow's purity and indifference.

She never bothered to put the flower away and when asked about it, she'd only smile a tearful smile and say,

"I wasn't enough."

Next: The blind leading the blind.