Painting Flowers

"Maybe it will all work out like in the movies,
But I know Romeo must die before the ending…"

Alex watched from the doorway as his mother gazed wistfully at the long-stemmed rose held in her slender fingers. Every night since the day his father died, Alex would watch his mother cradle the wilted flower, as if, if she stared at it long enough, it would bring him back. Its shriveled petals had remained the same deep crimson as they were by his hospital bed, like bloodstains against her porcelain skin. Not that Alex would know, of course.

They say that once you meet your true love, your soul mate, your partner for life; your whole world changes. That your world bursts into vivid hues - the grass becomes green and the skies turn blue, and that flowers are not grey, but paint delicate splashes of pink and yellow and purple, dancing through the fields.

Alex was now 26, and had only dated a handful of girls, all for no more than a day or two when he was in high school. He had not once felt even a glimmer of love, nor, in fact, had had any strong feelings at all towards the girls in question. As he watched his old friends move away with their girlfriends, some getting married and engaged, all marveling at the world in glorious technicolour, Alex had begun to worry that he was set to see everything in black and white for the rest of his life.