Ocean Roses

A couple find a mysterious rose floating in the ocean. Their overactive imaginations bring them to conclude the worst on how it could have possibly gotten there in the first place.

            “Look, sweetheart! I found you some roses!”  Mr. Brewer shouted.  They were a perfect shade of freshly drawn blood.

            “Where on earth did you ever find roses like that on the beach?”  Mrs. Brewer asked in astonishment.

            “I don’t know,” he answered “I just found them there, in the ocean!  Someone must have left them there.  Well, lucky for us, we found them, and now they are yours.”

            “Aw, thank you babe!”  She smiled and breathed the wilting flowers in.  What a wonderful and healthy life the two of them were leading, she thought to herself.  However, the roses' lives was escaping through Mrs. Brewer’s palms without her realizing it.  To her, it was a kind gesture that her husband portrayed.  But, what had it represented to the people who left them there?  The couple was wondering that very thing.

            “Who do you think could have left them there?” she asked.

            “Could’ve been anyone,” he answered. “It could’ve been some memorial service, and they threw roses into the ocean.”

            “That sounds likely.  Or, it could’ve been a man proposing, and the woman rejected him, so he threw his roses in the water.”

            “Hey, that could be it too.  Maybe someone who lives around here grew them, and decided he had too many and threw some off the cliff to the sea.”

            “That’s also likely,” she commented.  Maybe someone hated roses, and threw them away.”

“Also possible,” he pondered.

The possibility that stuck to Mrs. Brewer was the memorial service.  She imagined a young woman, ready to begin her life as an independent, who loved roses.  Her life was cut short by some accident, perhaps a car crash.  Her devastated boyfriend will eventually get over it.  After all, it was she who cared for him more than he for her.  He will move on to the next woman he can find, and all will be well.  She will soon be forgotten, but never by her actual family.  They will always hand her what she loved most in her burial site, which is where the ashes were spread in the ocean.  The pain-ridden parent looks into her garden, and grabs the roses, that only remind her of her daughter.  She squeezes them in her hand hard enough to draw blood from the thorns, and suppresses the memory of her late child.  So into the ocean the blood roses will go.

            “Well, whoever left them, they did us a kind favor, didn’t they, sweetie?” asked Mr. Brewer. 

“Sure.”  She was already starting to look down.

The reason that stuck to Mr. Brewer’s mind is the rejection.  He imagined a young man, ready and willing to give the rest of his life to his beloved, and now is at the moment of proposing said idea.  After bringing out his fancy glimmering diamond ring"one that he has yet to pay off"and scarlet red roses, the woman becomes scared.  She’s not yet ready to commit, and so the two are not on the same level.  After all, he’s much more committed to growing their relationship than she is.  She is unable to accept his offering, and in a panicking moment of awkward silence, she walks off to cool down.  Not knowing what to do, with the flashes of his foreseen life with the woman he loves now shattered to a million pieces, he is forced to let go.  Squeezing the roses one last time, cutting his hands with their thorns, drawing blood, he does none other than throw the memories out of his mind, and tries to let go of what he thought was surely his.  So into the ocean the blood roses will go.

Now, both Mr. and Mrs. Brewer are hurt that the other could care so little about their loss.  It is obvious that they are the one that is trying to keep them together, and the other has no intention on staying with the rose, and what it represents"a lovely deceased young woman, a promise to maintain a healthy life together, and the other will refuse to take that into their life.  So, it is apparent that they should let go as well.

“You know what?” asks Mrs. Brewer.  “I never asked you to grab me these flowers.”

Absolutely hurt by her remark, he replied, “Well, sorry to think that a small favor would be nice every once in a while.  Now I know to think twice about doing little favors, and I’ll make sure I only do something if you ask me to do it, and nothing more.”

They were now both horribly hurt.  They were so assured that their thoughts were true.  The other would leave on the first chance they get, and there is no use on trying to save what they have for each other.

 

On the ride home, neither of the two talked to each other.  A few words of recognition was all one was looking from the other, but neither will give in to say the first word.  At home, Mrs. Brewer will cry in her bedroom, and Mr. Brewer will cry in his living room for the loss of the other’s care in their relationship.  Both will mutter at the same time “What a misfortune those blood roses of the ocean brought to me.”

Author's Note

The story was inspired by a true event, that did not conclude to the same bitter end. I'd like to hear feedback, what do you think of this story?