white roses

There is a bouquet of white roses sitting on top of my mother’s chest of drawers. The scent, even after 13 days, still encasing her room. The roses at first sight, are dead; up close, they are withering away, the rims of the petals wrinkled but the center still flush and white. The bouquet of roses was sitting at our doorstep one morning, withered and dry. I almost threw them away. The roses are somehow still alive, breathing in gasps, nevertheless. But their fragrance still encases my mother’s bedroom. When the roses lose its fragrance, when they can’t stand upright on its own, even in a vase, we’ll probably throw them away. Forget about them once they’re out of sight, just as humans do. To all things, not only white roses.