CarizzCruzem

It was a lovely bright sunny day. It was also quite a busy day, for bees, collecting nectars and for flowers, absorbed in their bragging about their own beauty. Not everybody though was interested in the occasion. An ill-favored flower sighed in a corner.

‘Would you be interested if you were a flower but not even worthy of referring to yourself as one? If no one smells your scent, appreciates your looks or gets your nectar, would you delight in that situation? Silly questions! Of course, you wouldn’t!’ She sighed.

She once joined a group of flowers but only found disapproval not only among the flowers, but also among the bees and people as well. Since then, she chose to shut herself off from the rest of the world. She went to a corner where no one would ever criticize her again, in a place where no one could see her.

One day, after so many springs had passed, a stray bee saw her. He went to her and she, on the other hand, felt a tinge of hope.

‘Hullo! Why are you all alone here? Why don’t you join the other flowers?’

‘In my state?! No, never! It would only cause me pain.’

‘But YOU are a flower?’

‘Yes, I am, but I don’t feel like one or even look a little like one!’ she said.

She then told him her story and he listened patiently while buzzing around her.

‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ the bee said with such concern that the flower couldn’t control her nectar to flow. ‘Go on, cry it all out,’ the bee encouraged. ‘It will soothe you,’ he added.

‘Thank you! I’ve never felt such warmth as this in my whole miserable life until now,’ the flower said while sobbing.

Soon after, the bee visited the flower everyday. He wouldn’t get nectar from her though because their beehive would only accept nectar from the best flowers. Yet, this didn’t discourage the flower; after all, she got a friend. They shared their most intimate secrets and dreams. They became real good friends. They enjoyed each other’s company and learned to love each other more each day.

Not everybody though was happy with what was happening. In fact, the whole beehive was against the ongoing friendship while the other flowers remained unconcerned.

‘If you don’t stop seeing this disgusting flower, you would have to go find another hive,’ the queen-bee warned the bee after one of his short visits to his flower friend. ‘You’re not functioning well as a worker bee! AND you don’t need a flower friend, much more, a horrible-looking one. This should end here and now because you’re harming the reputation of the beehive!’

The bee was frightened because he could see that the queen-bee was dead serious. He knew very well that he wasn’t only harming the reputation of the beehive but he was also jeopardizing his career as a worker bee. Thus, he gathered all his courage and asked the queen-bee for an almost impossible request.

‘Your majesty… if I could just go to her tomorrow and bid her goodbye, I will then stop,’ he paused, ‘seeing her,’ he finished holding back the tears. He dared not say “the friendship” or it would mean punishment for him.

Miraculously, the queen-bee agreed, ‘Very well then. You can have your last visit to her tomorrow. But, I’m warning you, this MUST be the last.’ The hive shook.

The bee couldn’t sleep well that night. He knew that he must decide between this friendship and his whole life as a worker bee. He knew that there wouldn’t be many opportunities for him with other beehives if he disobeyed the queen-bee herself.

The next day, the flower was in her usual happy mood because she knew that her bee friend would visit her again. However, when she saw him, she felt that something was wrong. She just crossed her leaves and hoped that this wouldn’t mean farewell.

‘You don’t look like your normal self. Have you been eating too much honey again?’ She joked not to amuse her friend but more to keep her mind off the pending problem that she was suspecting. But even this didn’t prepare her for the next blow that would change all of her being.

‘I can’t continue to be your friend anymore,’ with that the bee flew away without even waiting for her response. The bee chose to live a normal bee-life, turning away from his flower friend.

The flower wasn’t that surprised but she felt too much pain to speak. When she recovered, she found herself alone again, this time with a broken heart.

‘I knew that it was too good to last long. I should never have allowed myself to be soaked in that friendship,’ she said without shedding a single drop of nectar.

It was such a huge blow for her. However, this didn’t make her sour. She knew that everything was for a purpose. She used the situation to count each day as a blessing knowing deep in her heart that somehow in someway an opportunity will come to her. An opportunity that would cause her to give her all in all, yes, even her own life. She needed not to wait long.

One day, a young boy was passing by. He was crying because his mother, the only parent he knew, died. His aunt would take him to a different country with her and he would never see his mother’s grave again. He sat on the grass feeling dejected because he was too poor to buy his mother even just a single flower. He looked down and beamed at what he saw, for there it was, an odd looking flower, planted on the ground. He quickly pulled it out of the ground and ran to his mother’s grave. He kissed the flower before gently putting it on the dirt where they buried his mother. The sun was setting low but before he hurried off to his aunt, he took one last look at his mother’s grave. “Perfect,” he whispered, as if afraid to disturb the serenity of the scene. He would treasure this moment as long as he lived. He would always look back to this particular moment and draw a sense of peace from it in his times of turmoil. At that, he hastened to the train station where his aunt was waiting for him.

The flower was left on the grave. Gasping her last breath, she uttered, ‘Alas, I am put to where I belong.’