The Rose Bush

He told me I was brilliant with that charming smile on his face and said he wished to give me a rose. I followed him out of the house into an enclosed garden with high brick walls full of apple and cherry trees covered in a blanket of white and pink blossoms. He brought me into the center of the garden towards a single rose bush and gestured for me to pick a rose. The leaves were a deep, vivid green, and all over the bush were perfect, pale pink roses. Each rose was faultlessly shaped, graceful and delicate, with a just a blush of deeper pink. I drew closer, slowly walking around the bush. Each rose was laden with a certain richness, somehow majestic in their delicateness. I stopped, drawn towards a rose that scarcely looked like a rose. It was still flower-like and beautiful, but it lacked the same majesty. It was just weird and awry. I hesitated, looking up at a perfect rose above. Then I decided. I told him I wanted the one strange rose. He stepped near and clipped the stem, handing it to me with a smile. I walked along the bush and came to another weird rose, lovely in its quaintness. I asked him if I could have this one also, and he replied by clipping the rose with his shears and handing it to me. We walked back towards the house to find a vase, and I stopped one more time to look back at all those sublime, pale pink roses. They were too powerful for me and far too unsullied. Besides, I preferred the eccentric. I always had. After all, that's why I had chosen him.