Bloom

儿子的小短文,12岁.

Bloom



Standing alone in the unforgiving weather, the lone sign of life among a field of death, a single wild flower blooms, thrusting its proud head out from the barren prairie, oblivious to the hammering drops of rain and unaffected by the furious gusts of wind, it survives, the only speck of color in its gray-and-brown surroundings. I watch, protected by the safety of the cabin, fed by the food prepared by my parents, given warmth by the gentle AC, content to stay indoors, while that bloom has to take on the ferocious onslaught of nature.

Thunder clapped, lightning struck, hail and sleet and cold and dust all came, throwing themselves at the poor thing, yet round after round it survived. Then the sun came, peeking out from the dismal clouds, then blazing with all its intensity after realizing it was unopposed. On and on, day after day it stayed, slaughtering whatever life had begun to come, decimating the new and burning the old, the horizon a constant rippling wave of heat, smoke wafting in the distance. The bloom, too, could not survive indefinitely. The petals dropped, the leaves yellowed, and the stalk withered.

I turned away, saddened by its death, for even the strongest are not immortal.