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@ Fervid Fables
2025-02-25 13:27:26
For the price tag on this room, I would've thought my death bed would be more comfortable. Since I've been admitted I've been in a perpetual state of discomfort despite the medicine that is supposed to keep me numb. The room is dark and I'm alone with the sounds of industry that keep this planet churning through the expanse of space.
The unease goes deeper than the surface, beyond the 1000 thread count Earth cotton grating against my skin, deeper than the cracking sinews of my muscles, it lurks in the wake of the vibrations of my heart as it throbs its final throbs.
The holoscreen comes to life at a thoughts command and quickly my unease turns to irritation as my name crawls across the screen. A woman points to the very hospital where I lay and expresses her sorrow as "One of the greatest men of this era awaits his death."
I suppose it couldn't come quicker. I shut off the holoscreen. Plunge myself back into the darkness and simply watch the shadows of the freighter transports cast through the opaque vinyl shutter as they pass by.
The light comes on. It blinds me and all I can hear are the footsteps that approach. The heels clatter loudly, soles of well made shoes. Expensive, probably Earth made like my sheets.
"You don't have to go through with this old man." I know the voice well. My mentee, the man I've groomed to take over my empire speaks again, "It's not too late to take the regenerons. You'd be looking younger than me within the week."
I don't care to explain myself. I turn away from him and he mutters something else then reaches over and rests a vase on the table in front of me.
Inside the vase float two scarlet tulips within a bouquet of gypsophila. The flowers smell freshly cut, a scent that instantly freshens my soul and harkens to a time before anyone could imagine I'd be known as "one of the greatest men of the era."
My mentee speaks, but his voice is nothing more than the ruffling of my sheets as I sit up and draw closer to you.
Precious tulips.
Tulips like these, I picked in the endless fields of Verduia. I, like the others who'd been bred to work on that planet, toiled away endless days to pick flowers just like these for affluent people just like me at this very moment.
I was never supposed to have the life I've lived. My biology was built to pick and die. To work, stay poor, and keep my head buried in the fields, that was my purpose.
I worked hard. My hands pruned and nurtured roots in the dark soil. But I loved harder. The memory of your marble skin against the thick layer of dirt beneath my nails will never fade. I've amassed a wealth that is the envy of entire solar systems, but the memory of you is richer.
My tulip, my eternal blossom. I'd run away from the task masters with you and hide in the tall sunflower fields where we'd make love.
People like us weren't meant to be in love. When you passed, I felt no greater discomfort. I thought wealth could fill that void. It hasn't. Not even a millennia since could wash away the memory of you. Only the closure of time, the death of me can remove this ever long dread. Here the need to revive the feeling only you could inspire ends.
-Art By Surenja Rajawat- Find him on instagram @suren.rajawat