Blue Rose

This is my last one, swear to God. Or is it, gods? Whichever sadistic mystery keeps us spinning, whether we want to or not. Today, I want to. Tomorrow I might not want it that way. I wonder what would happen if the world did stop. I don’t know much about astrophysics, but I like to think time stands still; if time were a real thing. It’s not. Time is a man-made construct. Someone somewhere down the line fancied themselves a god, and that delusion created the illusion of time; so in a sense, we live in a fantasy world. We pretend our lives are orderly and simple, when really the routine is as much of an illusion as time itself. Time is the veil. Growth and progress are real; and so are patterns, but Time is a false god. A number on a screen that tells me all the patterns that make me who I am. I could be a god. If I were, I would stop Time, and I would show this world how little it matters. This has to be the last one, for today at least, since there are only three left in the pack. A pack of cigarettes costs six dollars and fifty cents. I only have a dollar fifty in change, so I’ll smoke this one tonight, and save the rest for tomorrow.

There is a rosebush that grows on the side of my building in my apartment complex. This is where I go to smoke when Ricky isn’t around. I’m not sure who planted the rosebush, but I cultivate it. Me alone. I water it every day. I trim the wilting petals, and branches that stick out at odd angles. I reapply mulch every two weeks, and pesticide every few days. I care for these roses with a method of my own design, and it works. The roses are a violent shade of red, petals that soak up the sun with a visible vibrancy, and long elegant stems with thorns as violent as the color of the petals. The roses are objectively beautiful.

Every so often I’ll clip them and bring a handful to my landlord, Virginia. She is also objectively beautiful, for many of the same reasons as the roses. She is more beautiful than the girls Ricky and I stare at while we smoke our cigarettes and pretend to understand physics and philosophy. Those girls aren’t exactly attractive, but we stare anyways. We know better than to stare at Virginia. We made that mistake once. She said to take a fucking picture, that it would last longer. She isn’t very clever. I bring Virginia roses with the thorns trimmed. Six in full bloom. She seems to appreciate it. Her face lights up as she snatches them from my hand. She takes a deep breath to smell the aroma of what is now her bouquet.

I say, “These are the best they’ve been all year.”

She says, “Your rent is past due again, Milo.”

“I’ll have it in three days, swear to God. Maybe six.”

She says, “Just because you kiss my ass doesn’t mean you won’t have to pay up, you son-of-a-bitch.”

I say, “Aren’t they the best you’ve seen all year?”

She tries to hide her smile, but it’s no use. Her cheeks are redder than the roses, and she slams the door in my face so I can’t see. I must be attractive in some sense. Virginia is very attractive, objectively so, and she often looks at me in a certain way. Ricky calls them “fuck-me” eyes. Since she’s attractive, and she gives me “fuck-me” eyes, then I reckon I must be attractive, too. I wonder if Ricky’s ever had to sweet talk her to get his way. They fuck a lot, so I doubt it. I don’t think he says much at all.

I should call my Dad. He might pay my rent this month, but it would be an interesting conversation.

“Hi, Dad! How long has it been now?”

“Six years, Son.”

“Wow, that long! I love you. Pay my rent?”

Six years? Shit, that can’t be right. When was the last time I called him, his birthday? Father’s Day? October or June, it’s hard to say. Time is pointless anyways. Whoa, I’m a fucking poet. If there was no such thing as a year maybe he would see that it hasn’t been that long at all. Subjectively, it might feel like an instant. He would pay my rent if that were the case. As if yesterday was six years ago, and I was a toddler the day before that, and my mother was alive the day before that, before I killed her. A C-section would’ve kept her alive, but she was stubborn. For her, nature was nothing to fuck with and death is natural. Just more progress, growth.

I called my sister some time ago. She’s 26 and 30 all at once. Time is a mind-fuck. I’m 22 and 16, which is why we don’t get along, since she is much older than her age and I am much younger. She didn’t answer, so I got my change back, and decided to spend it on my next pack of cigarettes, but it still isn’t enough money. This is why I will never try heroin. This is why I will never do crack, or meth, or speed, or prostitutes, because I can’t even stay away from tobacco long before I start itching for a new one. Ricky says it’s called fiendin’.

I asked him once, “Hey Ricky, what do you call it when you’re starving, but for a smoke?”

He said, “Feindin’. Or Itchin’.”

“I’m fiendin’ then,” I said.

He said, “Milo my friend, we’re all fiendin’ for something.”

He fancies himself a philosopher. Too many talks with Ricky and my head spins so fast it makes planetary orbits look like raindrops dripping down a window pane. If I can’t even stop my own brain how could I stop the Earth? Some god I would be. I’m sure God feels the same way sometimes. After all, he’s made in our image and vice versa. Ricky and I aren’t really friends but he lives next door to me and happens to be a smoker, so we blow through a pack in a matter of hours: shooting the shit and staring at the girls that pass by.

We don’t live in a very nice part of town. Rappers make it seem like pushing drugs is a lucrative business. Girls and cars and codeine and all that. I’m a great pusher, but I hardly see any money. Just barely enough to pay my rent most days. Rent, a pack of smokes, groceries, mulch, and pesticides. I’d rather sell cars, or booze, but that’s a lot of work. A lot of time. Time I don’t have, since it doesn’t exist and doesn’t belong to anyone. Growth exists, and progress; maybe not for me, though, since I’ve been 16 for six years and a smoker for as long as I can remember. I push anything that Ricky gives me. Mostly pills, anything he can swipe from the lab. He’s a custodian there and he looks the part; he wears a grey zip-up jumper and a handlebar moustache. He’s been there for ten years now, but he would tell you he’s been there for forever. Time is so subjective I find it hard to argue with him. Okay, last one, swear to God.

I found a blue rose amongst the red ones, once. I’ve never seen anything like it. I just lit my first cigarette of a new pack and was planning to bring Virginia a bouquet since my rent was past due, again. My hopes weren’t exactly high, since it was early in the season. Most of the roses were still budding. The blue rose, however, was blooming. Another example of the futility of time. I watched it every day for about a week, and every day it grew significantly faster than the red ones. None of the petals ever fell from the rose. Instead, layers and layers of new blue petals revealed themselves each time I checked. Eventually the flowering atop the stem was the size of baseball with all of its petals opened up to the sun. The thorns grew so long they curved to a fine point, and wove themselves in and out of the bush like the intricate design of a wrought-iron gate. It was objectively beautiful.

I kept the flower a secret for a long time, going out every day to water the whole bush, though really just for the sake of that one special rose. I watered it, added pesticides, and took drags of my various cigarettes. That last bit made me nervous. I had in my possession a priceless ontological marvel, and damned if I was the one to kill it with my smoking habits. I was extremely proud of the work I had done to cultivate it. I showed Ricky.

“It’s nothing special really,” he said.

“How is that not special? I’ve never seen anything like it in my life!”

He said, “If you’ve seen someone with a mental disability then you’ve seen it before.”

I told him he was over my head.

“It’s a mutation,” he said. “A flaw in the DNA. Could be for the best though. Growth is evolution is survival.”

He’s a fucking poet. Growth is evolution is survival. This rose is just one of many on the rosebush that I cultivate. The red ones are clipped and given away to Virginia so that I might survive in their stead. But this blue one I don’t clip, because it’s evolved in a way that is special to me, so it survives. Every day it survives, and grows, and does not think about time or space or gods or rent. Ricky told me I couldn’t sell it for more than 6 dollars.

I wasn’t quite satisfied with that, so I called my sister. She didn’t answer. I called my Dad, and while the phone rang, I repeated to myself over and over that I would not ask him to pay my rent. He didn’t answer. Ricky had not yet resupplied me with Zanny’s and codeine, specials for the month, so I had not yet earned enough money for a new pack of smokes.

Sometime after that; a day, maybe more or less, whenever. I took my sheers and I clipped the blue rose. I trimmed the long elegant thorns from the stem, and set out for the Seven-Eleven on the corner of my block. The man behind the counter, 60 and 40 all at once, bought my blue rose for twelve dollars and a pack of cigarettes, which is about eighteen dollars total, and that ontological marvel became his. Death is a part of nature, another form of growth. The blue rose has retired. It exists in a timeless state on the counter of that Seven-Eleven. I know it to be timeless because after a year and a half, or perhaps a day if they’re one and the same, that blue rose is still the size of a baseball. It sits there in an empty wine bottle with petals that don’t wilt and thorns that won’t grow. I always hit the top of the pack against my palm before I open it, so that each cigarette will last longer.

Last one, swear to God.