Immortal Flower

Lord Winston took a long puff on his cigar and looked dreamily out
the window. A tall gardener in white overalls was tending the roses,
stooping carefully to serve each bush. Winston smiled happily. He loved
roses. He loved their soft pink tissue and their sparkling beauty. He
loved their thorns, their hard green stems; tied to the world of
animals and predators. Calmly, Winston took the smoke into his mouth
and then blew it out in a perfect smoke ring.

Lord Winston had always loved the roses but these days he made sure his
roses were very well cared for. He took a very special interest in the
beautiful flowers. You see, the smell and sight of roses brought back
memories of his youth, now long lost in the relentless flow of time.
Lord Winston was no longer the strong, handsome young man he had once
been. His large muscular legs had thinned over the years and now were
only good for his morning walk with his dog. Even then, he often felt
just a little unsteady on his feet though they never let him down.
Winston would have shortened the mile long walk long ago except for a
proud backbone that he was still possessed of. Indeed, the strong
greyhound, Lila had become rather dangerous for the frail old man as he
held her firmly by the leash. But this was not a concern of Winston's.
Despite his refined, elegant way of carrying himself, there was a
rebellious, daring wolf living in the old man's masculine, still
jutting chin.

It was an English summer on his manor and the warm sun bathed the
usually cold land, warming the comfortable Lord Winston. He decided it
would be a fine time to inspect his art collection which was, indeed,
his entire house. All three floors of the plush mansion were decorated
with pieces of exotic art that Lord Winston had personally purchased in
the many travels of his lifetime.

Lord Winston picked a cane out of his cane-holder. It was a dark wooden
cane and it's handle was the elegant, strong head of a greyhound dog,
ears flattened against the carved surface. He didn't really need the
cane to walk; though it helped. Indeed a large reason he used a cane to
walk around the house was because he liked canes. His large collection
of canes was the result of a lifetime of cane collecting. But his
strong body had lasted long into his life. It was only now, after the
age that most men die, that Winston condescended to actually use his
canes.

First, Lord Winston visited his large collection of colored Chinese
carvings. The carvings were in all the colors of the rainbow and there
was a carved animal for every year of the Chinese Calendar. The pig was
flat and slothful but somehow wise. The monkey was childish and
rebellious while the rooster stood proud, frozen in the defiant
posture.
Next, Winston walked along a row of his Indian tapestries. The
beautiful dark aristocrats were dressed like beautiful, sharp birds and
the animals glittered with jewels under a created sun. What he loved
the most about the Indian tapestries was their masculinity. The Indian
men dominated the women, the glittering jewels, the landscape. The men
on the tapestries were masters and their surroundings mere
servants.

Next, Lord Winston walked down a long winding stairway that led to the
basement of his mansion. He could not use his cane here and held
carefully onto the smooth wooden rail so as not to lose his footing. He
could feel his bare feet patting on the soft, blue, descending carpet.
He came down here to see one of his most prized possessions. It was a
painting of a woman, fully dressed although the line of her white top
revealed much of her cleavage. Indeed, the beautiful painting was as
beautiful and flesh-like as Mary, the girl whose portrait it was, had
been when Lord Winston had painted it.

He had collected many things in his lifetime; by nature he was a
collector. Masterful and analytical, he took his energy to things,
physical possessions that could be touched and felt. Indeed, in his
younger years, Lord Winston had been a collector of women. But though
many women had filled Winston's life, they had passed as did the nights
and the dreams that filled them. And now, before Lord Winston, was the
last physical remnant of a girl, a dream, he had struggled to hold onto
but had lost to the chaos of the world. Why?

Mary had been stolen by a rival, a businessman who had no title but
much more money than Lord Winston, although Lord Winston was a wealthy
man. Hatred had long brewed in Lord Winston for this man, for this
rival. Many times, the animal like rage had run through him; he'd
wanted to face the man and break the man with his bare fists. And what
had this been? A mere primitive emotion swept up in Lord Winston from
his inner ape; a masculine, mindless hairy beast that Lord Winston was
not. And as his feelings of physical love flee with the passing years;
so did his feelings of hate. There was no longer even a feeling of
resentment for the man who had once been Lord Winston's most bitter
enemy. But there was still an eternal sadness; a black aching void in
the heart of the man who had once loved Mary.

And it was here, in the middle of the black void, in front of the
painting of the beautiful, graceful, lost vixen that Lord Winston came
for solace; for rest, for a peaceful spirit. Lord Winston was an old
man, 95 and his winning road had been a long one. Many defeated rivals
lay along this enchanted road to power; Lord Winston had crushed the
dreams of many other dreams to fulfill his own dreams. But feelings of
guilt did not rise in Winston, a thinking man, for this; such was the
nature of life and so had Winston played life. No, the sadness came
from a single romantic defeat; mixed with the victory of early
conquest. He looked at the girl's strong white legs, fascinatingly
feminine and her graceful proud lips. Such beauty can never be
possessed, thought Lord Winston, though it exists to be possessed. Her
flowing blond hair fell on her painted shoulders and filled the room
with magic..

The magic threw open the painting into a black void. The only thing
visible was a single, brilliant, glowing pink rose, floating in black
space; somehow immortal. Lord Winston thought to go look at his
renaissance style statue collection. He looked back. The door that led
to the ascending stairway was still open. He could still leave the room
and escape the void. But the black void held Lord Winston in a trance.
It's time to go now, he thought. Gracefully, with a strength that had
left him long ago, the old man stepped onto the void and walked boldly
forth into the blackness. Leaving the world behind, Lord Winston
pursued the glowing pink rose into the lonely, cold blackness.
Carefully, so as not to cut himself on the thorns, Lord Winston took
hold of the glowing rose's green stem and held it to his nostrils. Now
he inhaled the beautiful, magic scent of the immortal flower.