The Black Rose of Winter
June 20, 2017
The Black Rose of Winter
by Connie H. Deutsch
Cyrus loved working in his garden. It didn’t matter what the season was, he always found something beautiful to cultivate. His wife, on the other hand, didn’t share his love of the soil and always tried to get him interested in other pursuits.
Their marriage was teetering. They used to have a few things in common, now they had none. Cyrus was always busy with his garden or his greenhouse. When he couldn’t go outside, he would sit for hours writing up his experiments on crossbreeding the different varieties of his roses. He loved those roses. They felt almost sacred to him.
As the years went by, Vera grew more bitter about her marriage and the roses. She couldn’t even stand to see their beautiful garden. Every flower represented the many years of feeling inconsequential in her marriage and she grew to hate them and to hate Cyrus for neglecting her.
One February night, she was sitting at the table, looking out into her garden and a feeling of hatred so strong, overcame her. She sat there for an hour waiting for the intensity to pass but instead of subsiding, it increased.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” she said aloud. “If I stay in this marriage, I’ll go crazy.” She listened for a few minutes and then said, “Good. Cyrus is sleeping; I just heard him snoring the sleep of the dead.”
She got up quietly and went into her bedroom where she packed some winter clothing and a few dressy outfits in a suitcase, and then walked quietly down the stairs and out the back door. When she got to her car, she put her suitcase in the trunk of the car, leaving it slightly open so it didn’t make any noise.
With her heart hammering and her mind going in dizzying directions, Vera opened up the tool shed and took out a machete and weed poison and then went to work on her destruction. She decimated every flower in the garden and greenhouse, making sure that not a single rose survived. Then she poured weed killer on every inch of soil. She stood there for a few moments savoring the satisfaction of destroying the one thing that had destroyed her marriage.
As she stood there, a tiny black rose sprouted up from the ground amidst the weed killer and dead flowers. She cut it down and it sprang up again. A sense of panic overcame her and she ran to her car and started the engine.
Vera thought she heard a soft voice in the wind whispering, “The black rose of winter is a symbol that when it comes to man against nature, nature will always win.” Vera started to tremble. That couldn’t have been a voice in the wind, she thought. She quickly drove off in her car and didn’t look back so she didn’t see the black rose of winter springing up and growing another foot.
Connie H. Deutsch is an internationally known business consultant and personal advisor who has a keen understanding of human nature and is a natural problem-solver.
Connie is the author of the books, “Round and Round Goes the Merry-Go-Round: Drugless Therapy for OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)”; “Whispers of the Soul,” “A Slice of Life,” “Whispers of the Soul for the Rest of Your Life,” “From Where I’m Sitting,” “Are You Listening?,” “View from the Sidelines,” “Reaching for the Brass Ring of Life,” “Purple Days and Starry Nights,” “Here and There,” “And That’s How it Goes,” and “The Counseling Effect.” Her website: https://www.conniehdeutsch.com/ See more of her articles by clicking here ConnieHDeutsch Articles