Enjoy These Roses
The day that the rosebush fell in love with the mailbox across the road was warm and ordinary.
The wind came up with the sun and the petals of the newly opened roses moved slowly and silently as if to celebrate the bush's origin of feelings connected to a larger consciousness. The bush had never felt anything like this before. Up until now, it had only existed in a state of perpetual forward motion. The bush had always drawn life from the sky and the ground. It had always (for as long as it had existed) opened its flowers in the spring and shed the pedals by the end of the summer.
Other than that, the bush had not given much thought to its surroundings or the state of life (its own or otherwise) at all.
But now, quite suddenly and without any perceptible reason, the bush felt drawn with significant force to the mailbox across the road.
The feeling of love, as glorious as it is on its own, was even more mind-blowing (for, to feel love, we must possess a mind, if not a brain) to the rosebush. Almost immediately, the feeling of love also opened up several other new emotions and perceptions in the bush.
Because of the love that the rosebush now felt, it also began to feel longing, separation, and its very own sense of place in the world.
The bush could see that the mailbox was out of reach. There was a long, dusty road separating the two potential lovers. In fact, the rosebush quickly noticed that the mailbox was most likely not even on the same farm as the bush. The bush could tell that the country road was also a property division. It was an odd setting for very everyday occurrences.
There were two houses, almost directly across from each other, with farmland stretching out behind them. As far as the bush could tell from its position at the edge of the road and in front of the house on its side of the road, these were the only two structures built between the rosebush and the horizon.
The reality was that rosebush was on one plot of land, and the mailbox was fated to receive post for the residents on the other side of the road. This may not seem (to the mobile, conscious, free beings that we are) to be a considerable distance. But to the rosebush, stationary and inexperienced in the ways of love and travel, it seemed nothing short of insurmountable.
On the rosebush's side of the road (for the bush was now beginning to feel the sense of ownership that many times accompanies feelings of romantic love) there was a small ramshackle house, kept up to the best of the abilities of its resident. Beyond that, there was farmland that did not seem, to the rosebush's newfound sense of judgment, to be very fruitful. The land seemed good. The rosebush, who was fairly self-sufficient, had done just fine after all. There was some other trouble with the lack of productivity evident in the other crops of the rosebush's farm.
On the mailbox's side of the world, there was a similar house and farmland. The land and crops on the mailbox's side seemed greener, more lush, and ready for harvest, even at this early time in the spring.
The rosebush wondered what the mailbox was like. The bush wanted to know everything about this noble receptacle of American post! Where had it been made? Who had made it? How many different postmen had the mailbox known and what stories could it tell? Did it know the contents of the letters that it sheltered in the correspondence's travel from sender to receiver? This was indeed an exciting world...
Then there was a man.
The rosebush had certainly never noticed this man before the unexpected feeling of love had awakened it, but now that the bush saw (for love opens our eyes) the man, it understood why the farm on this side of the road had fallen into neglect.
This man was unconcerned with his own homestead. He carried a bottle in his worn and unwashed hands. He periodically lifted the bottle to his lips as he paced back and forth on his porch. He stared with longing, a longing that the bush was now becoming familiar with, at the house opposite his own.
The man was not unattractive or incapable, but the bush could feel his discontent. The man had allowed almost all in his life to fall into disrepair as he stared across the road.
Then the bush was even further distracted from its love as a young girl emerged from the other house, the house where the mailbox stood guard. The girl was young and pretty, full of life and energy that the rosebush had not witnessed before. She moved freely and glowed in an imperceptible way that made the rosebush experience another new emotion: envy.
The man perked up. He lowered his bottle and fixed his attention on the girl. The rosebush and the man watched intently as the girl trotted happily to the mailbox and yanked it open.
The rosebush's symbolic feeling of a heart leapt suddenly into its metaphorical throat to see such brutality inflicted on the object (for it was only an object) of the rosebush's affection.
The girl seemed excited at what she found in the mailbox and she returned to the shelter of her house even more quickly than she had come. As the rosebush turned its attention back to the man, it could feel an eruption bubbling to the surface of the man's ability of control.
Then, to the rosebush's horror, the man was striding forcefully in the rosebush's direction.
The man tossed his bottle to one side as he bent over the helpless bush and ripped it easily out of the soil. The bush felt pain as it had not in this lifetime, but more than that, the bush felt confusion. Why would this being destroy one of the last remaining pieces of evidence that proved that he was at all concerned with the world around him? Why was he willing to give up what he had (a beautiful rosebush that was thriving in soil that was his) for something else? For something intangible and very possibly unattainable? Where was this motivation coming from?
After the man yanked the bush from its home, he ripped it to shreds.
He tore several of the longest branches of the bush from its body, bloodying his hands has he did so. Then he tossed the tattered remains of the bush to one side and strode across the road as he arranged the flowers into a clumsy bouquet.
Then the bush (or, rather, the still conscious limbs of the bush) realized the end result of the man's misguided plan. The man intended to take what was his and (for all practical purposes) destroy it in the hopes of gaining affection from the object of his attention: the girl that dwelt across the road. And his means for doing this was, by some heavenly design, to bring together the rosebush and the object of its affection!
The man jerked the mailbox open and drunkenly stuffed the roses inside. He then shut the mailbox and the rosebush knew no more of him.
This was right. The rosebush now understood that this was supposed to have happened this way. For all the savagery, for all the confused feelings that had inspired this chain of events, for all of the violence that had been the means to this end, the end was correct. The man had no choice but to rip his world to shreds in order to deliver a thing of beauty to the world that existed outside of himself. He simply did not know any other way. True creation or change always means sacrifice, but what is that, in the end? What does it matter how the rosebush ends up in the mailbox, as long as it does?
Everything was as it should be for the tattered remains of the rosebush, contained blissfully inside the metal framework of the mailbox.
As for the fate of the man and the girl across the road, the rosebush cared not one bit.
SB
5/29/14
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