A very short story.

All my posts this season are “inspired by” a letter of the alphabet!

I was born among the green and the brown. And sometimes, from beneath my mother’s boughs, I saw the blue. She named me Rose.

I grew, little by little, as every living thing does, putting out feelers to explore the air, my surroundings. I began to see the blue more often, growing tall and strong, reaching to the sky. Sometimes my own limbs would mar my view, but then a light breeze would ruffle me and the blue reappeared. The blue and the yellow. I loved that yellow ball, far above me, feeding me, nurturing me, and I stretched towards it. My mother tried to hold me back, shading me with her arms, but I looked for another path, I branched out to find a way towards the light. I would not be held back.

One day, I heard unfamiliar sounds. Like the buzz of the bees who often visited me, but one thousand times louder. Harsh sounds were unpleasant to me. My head was at the level of one of my mother’s arms, and as I turned the topmost of myself to see, to my horror, it was lopped off. A large, buzzing thing was trying to kill her. I could do nothing. When it had finished with her, it came for me.

I woke up, aching, and felt something stroking me. I was in parts. It astonished me, but I was still alive. But I was being changed. My rough body was becoming sleek, stroked and smoothed by unknown hands.

The next thing I knew was a room full of noise. A cacophony of chaos. Small creatures, some with sticks. Over months, I was used, beaten, mistreated. Until one day my saviour appeared. This saviour suggested that care was needed. Respect, love, fondness… awe.

And after that, I decided I would not play along. I would not reproduce the strident sounds those small beings yearned for in their frenzy. If they tried to hit me too hard, I would jump and hit them in the eye, or the hand. What had I become? Just another iteration. I was xylo. I was phono. I was the sound, the heart, of wood, of brown, of my birth. But I was also Rose, beautiful and strong. And I would bring to them, as a gift, the sound of the brown, the green and the blue; warm, muted and pure.

No matter how much I miss the brown, the green, the blue, the yellow, even the wind, wafting through my bones. No matter how hard they beat me.

I am… Always.

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