The following is an excerpt from Out on Seventh Street Vol. 1, an eBook collection of non-fiction stories on love, loss, a bit of travel and food and other musings on living. You can acquire the eBook through: Payhip (Paypal), Gumroad (Credit Card), or bank deposit (HK/Philippines only – email johnabaylon at gmail dot come with the title OOSS E-Book).
About Johna Baylon
Johna is a copy-based advertising creative and essayist currently residing in Hong Kong. She lives on the written word, coffee, and long walks, a lifestyle she doesn’t necessarily advocate. She also blogs on www.outonseventhstreet.com.
Roses
I saw them as a I descended the ladder from my bed: pools of scarlet on the wood panelled floor. It was a beauty, the dead softly shed like blood in the snow. Above, their rose bulbs bowed, as though mourning fallen companions. It was disturbing and moving in equal parts, how roses could still be so lovely in the end, even after they have fallen apart.
There were three of them contained in the 1.5L water bottle. There are no vases in myapartment, so I had to improvise when I received the roses. The bottleneck was wide enough for all three stems, but the stems weren’t long enough, so I had to fill the bottle half-full with water for the roses to live.
Which they did, but now their time had come. I held up one of the bulbs, a fleshy dark crimson, now crisp like paper. More petals fell.
Time to bury the dead.
*
I have always admired women with floral preferences other than roses. Azaleas, stargazers, tulips. It makes them interesting, assuming each unique preference comes with a story to tell. Roses in comparison almost pales, being default in favourite, although this does not make them any less beautiful. The most unique I have ever gotten in terms of a favourite flower was when I thought I preferred white roses to red ones. This lasted, in my pre-teen years, for as long as it sounded different – unique, almost. Soon, however, it became clear that red roses moved me more for everything they quietly stand for: romance, earnestness, love. White roses are safe, like a peace offering (and on some days, a white flag). Red roses put themselves out there, declarative, vulnerable. A little like love itself.
*
I am bad at receiving roses, though. After ‘thank you,’ the thoughts that follow are: what to do with the roses when I arrive home? Where do I place them?
Our house in Cavite had three vases, if I am not imagining the third one. All of them were constantly occupied. When given a rose, I’d have to interrupt whichever were first in their vase, like force-seating an uninvited guest at the dinner table. Sometimes I plucked out the flowers altogether to make room for my own. Looking back, I know I should’ve just bought myself a vase. I’m not sure why I never did.
This, I say, is why I prefer to receive books to roses (or chocolates, to roses). Although it could be argued that this is simply because I am a reader, so of course. Still, books don’t wither and die.
I explained this to him. I said books make me happy, more than flowers and their flattery. He understood, and soon started giving me books – although he never ceased to give me roses, either.
*
The first time I received a rose from him was before it all began. We were in our sophomore year in college; it was two days before Valentine’s. I was walking to an extra-curricular dance class on campus when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned and found him there, holding out, toward me, a single stem red rose.
It took a while for the gesture to register.
My crush. A red rose. SJ Walk, the long corridor by the football field in campus, fully setup with booths selling roses and chocolates and serenading services from various singing groups.
This guy.
A rose. Is it for me?
About half a minute passed before I could say the only thing I had in mind.
“Is that for me?”
He smiled, and laughed, and said yes. I smiled, and laughed, and unabashedly retrieved it with what might have been a skip in my step. We hugged.
*
On my 18th birthday he gave me three red roses, and during the celebration held a few days later, he was my 18th rose. We danced the last dance to the wrong song, which upset me for a bit, as I had carefully arranged the setlist the night before.
More roses came over the months, years. Some in single stems, some in three’s, some in bouquets. For Valentine’s, birthdays, anniversaries, I’m sorry’s. I collected every single one. Some remain in a corner of my old bedroom table, brittle with age though still standing, their washi-like petals a bronzed taupe. Others, now dressed down as petals, are gathered in a small blue box stashed among trinkets and memorabilia, tucked safely underneath my bed.
*
After we broke up he sent a bouquet of roses, delivered to the office. They made me cry.
The last time I received roses from him was last Valentine’s. I had received a book the week before, too, so I was not expecting the roses.
That day fell within the same week as Chinese New Year, so we were on holiday from work. I was at home when a man phoned. He could barely speak in English so I took it for a misdial. He phoned again, and I thought he was selling me insurance. The third time he called, by which point I was mildly irritated, it occurred to me that he was probably calling for a delivery. He said he was waiting with flowers in front of 7eleven.
I put on a coat and left the apartment, and found the delivery person in a suit, dressed for the occasion. I approached him and apologised, and he handed over a bouquet. It was gorgeous, a handful of roses surrounded by other flora and fauna. There was a card attached. It said that every girl deserves to receive roses on Valentine’s Day. I cried again.
Back in the apartment, I laid the bouquet on the table. I thought of emptying another 1.5L bottle of water, but the bottleneck would not be able to hold the entire bouquet. So I propped it up against the wall instead, admiring the flowers, the wrapper, the thought, the gesture.
In the the days that followed, the bouquet was moved to the window pane, when my mom and I had to use the table. Later it found itself atop my folders. Afterward, it was on the mattress below my bunk bed. And then it rested in a corner next to some umbrellas.
It’s not that I didn’t care for it. It’s just that there aren’t any vases in this apartment, and I had nothing else to hold it. Why didn’t I just buy a vase? I could have.
When, a week later, the apartment started to smell like a funeral home, I decided I’d single the roses out of their wrapper and place them in a half-filled 1.5L water bottle. But no sooner than I had lifted the bouquet did petals tumble onto the floor, gracing the wood panels like drops of scarlet against old snow.
I bent down to gather them and more petals fell.
Setting the bouquet back on the table, I looked for a pair of scissors and snipped the bulbs off their stems. I rummaged around the apartment and, finding my journal, set the roses and their petals between the last page and back cover.
One day they might tumble out like an old reminder.
Until then, here they will lay. Securing them in place, I gently, very carefully, turned the cover over and pressed the book close.
Featured image by Jessica. Used with permission via the Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 License.
