The Flower

It was all she had left. Or perhaps it was the only thing she had ever had. The first real thing.

The flower still bloomed, just as the day she had found it, in a garbage can outside the grocery store, a dumpster, a place of refuse. And yet this beauty. She had refused to leave it there, though she knew taking it with her would help it no more than leaving it. While she could possibly keep it alive in its pot, the place in which she lived was no better. It would still be beauty among refuse, among garbage. Her "house" was garbage, not even a house at all, but a box in an alleyway. She was garbage. Refuse. She had been told so. And she had been refused by all. She had been turned away. There had been no one to accept her. That is why she accepted the flower. She liked to see it as herself. She liked to imagine she was beautiful, even though she knew it was not so. She liked to think that someone would see her amidst the refuse, see a scrap of beauty amongst the garbage and take her away.

Summer drew to a close. Fall drew to a close. Time passed faster than she had expected. But it wasn't the first time she had spent a year alone and wondered where it had all gone and known it would never be back. It was lost forever. Lost and wasted, just as all of her life had been. But the flower was not a waste. The time she had spent caring for it was the only time she had ever spent on something worthwhile. This was something that could last. Yet the seasons had contrived to destroy it. It could not last the winter in a cardboard box. She could not carry it with her to the bathrooms she slept in by night during the cold months of the year.

The arrest occurred before she could put much thought to a solution. In her cell she wondered if it was worth it for the warmth, that can of soup she ate cold from the can with her fingers, the one she hadn't had the money for. The warmth, perhaps; the food. In this way her life was improved. But the beauty was missing. What little she had found that made it worthwhile to live. That which she was required to care for to keep alive had kept her alive. And the thought of it kept her alive now.

She returned to the alley. Time had passed. Too much time. But she was hopeful. Too hopeful. Surely what sustained her would not be taken from her.

There was a darkened alleyway, the dimming light barely revealing a lone figure, kneeling on the ground. The light faded, taking with it the image of the figure as well as the empty alley, the trash cleared away, the boxes, the garbage, the refuse. But the darkness could not conceal the sound of the weeping that issued from the figure, the sound of a life destroyed.