Little gardener

A long time ago, or perhaps not so long ago. On a very distant planet, or perhaps quite close. On the planet of flower people, a little gardener was born. He didn't yet know he would become a gardener. Like everyone on this planet, he was born as a flower – a red tulip.

For a long time, he was nurtured by an old gardener who made sure he lacked nothing. He was watered when needed, exposed to the sun so that the petals would take on their fullest color. When the winter frosts arrived, he was gently moved to a warm greenhouse. He had truly comfortable conditions for blooming. Years passed, and the tulip grew aware that it was time to transform. He desired to become a gardener himself. He pulled his roots from the earth and set out in search of a flower to care for. He was picky. He didn't like daisies and forget-me-nots – they were too common. He also disliked the dahlia – it was too arrogant. Aware of its beauty, it required special care and expensive fertilizers. Our little gardener couldn't afford them. Searching for the right flower, he drifted further and further from his greenhouse. Until finally, in a very distant garden, he found what he was looking for.

Among many other flowers, he noticed a scarlet rose. A young bush, its petals still pressed into buds. Despite this, it exuded such an ethereal scent that our hero shivered. This was the plant of his dreams, the flower he had long sought.

Cautiously and fearfully, he approached it, fearing it would anger him and injure him with its sharp thorns. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt him. As he loosened the soil around it, it gently brushed him with its leaves. He carefully dug it out of the ground and moved it to his greenhouse.

Unfortunately, the rose didn't cope well with the new conditions. The little gardener also had no experience caring for flowers. To make matters worse, the old gardener still saw it as a red tulip, requiring constant care. That's why he disliked the rose, which had deprived his garden of its beloved plant. He advised the young gardener how to care for the rose. Following his advice, the rose withered further and further. It bloomed three times and three times lost its unripe fruit, only producing it on the fourth attempt.

The rose also began to treat its guardian differently. It stung painfully, drawing blood whenever he tried to follow its teacher's advice. The young gardener was devastated. On the one hand, he still loved the rose dearly, but on the other, he also felt a love for the old gardener who had tended it for so many years. He increasingly neglected the greenhouse, the rose, and the flower that had grown from its seed.

He discovered a special, magical fertilizer. Oh no, not for the rose—for himself.

When he watered his roots with it, he underwent a metamorphosis. He grew wings, soared high into the air, becoming a bird. Unfortunately, when the fertilizer wore off, his wings fell off, and he fell with a loud crash, painfully hitting the ground. Wanting to fly longer, he began using more and more fertilizer. He flew more and more often, higher and higher. But the higher he soared, the more painful the falls became when his wings fell off. He forgot that he was a flower-person, that flower-people didn't fly.

He wanted to fly forever. Higher, higher, always higher—to the sun, to the stars.

The abandoned greenhouse fell into increasingly dilapidated condition. The lonely rose had to take care of its own needs and the needs of its offspring.

After another painful fall, the little gardener remembered the greenhouse. Seeing the devastation his absence had wrought, he decided to escape it once and for all. He buried his roots in a concentrate of herbicide and began to fall asleep forever. He dreamed of his rose, just as he'd first seen it in the garden.

He could smell its fragrance, feel the brush of its leaves against his face. He heard its rustle, the rustle of many other flowers that had long since withered in abandoned gardens—he was beginning to understand that previously incomprehensible hum.

When, after a long time, he finally opened his petal-like eyes, he saw her above him. Tears of dew glistened sadly on her flowers and thorns. She didn't speak to him, and he heard all her unspoken words.

He decided then to stop flying. He didn't succeed immediately. He flew less frequently and low to the ground, but he did fly.

During this time, he severed ties with the old gardener, who wanted to uproot his rose, blaming her for his aerial escapades. And now the time had come for his final flight. The little tulip-gardener had prepared himself perfectly. He had stocked up on enough fertilizer to turn a field of sunflowers into birds. He locked himself in his greenhouse and flew.

When he felt his wings were about to fall off, he added a new portion of fertilizer and flew, flew, flew. He lost all sense of time, space, or dimension. His wings were already failing, exhausted by the constant gliding. The leaves were withering, the petals barely clinging to the flower head.

He would have probably reached heaven if the rose hadn't appeared. It had destroyed the fertilizer and waited for its wings to fall off.

The impact with the ground tore a huge hole in it—he didn't even feel it. Even though he no longer had wings, it still felt like he was flying.

He wanted to break free from this state, but he kept gliding on leaves stretched in terror, on petals, on every part of his flowering body. He rapidly changed his flight path. He soared over the park, only to find himself a moment later above a field covered with rye. Before he could take a good look at the place, he was already over the desert. The heat was squeezing the last of his life-giving juices from him. As if that weren't enough, a moment later he was flying over a huge glacier. What hadn't evaporated was now freezing inside him, painfully wounding his entire body with ice crystals. It lasted forever.

Cold... heat... sand... ice... field... forest... city... greenhouse... sand... greenhouse... ice... greenhouse... greenhouse... greenhouse... - he landed.

He lay in his flowerpot. The withered leaves quivered convulsively, the petals barely clinging to the calyx. He heard one word.

"I'm leaving."

The word triggered a strange reaction in him. He remembered his long dream, what he had heard, what had not been said. Finally, he understood, saw the purpose of his life. With tremendous effort, he lifted the barely living leaves and clung to the rose's thorns. He didn't care that they were painfully wounding him, that red sap was dripping to the ground.

"No," he rustled, "I will die without you." "I don't want to fly anymore."

The rose remained. Hostile, menacing, bristling with thorns like a thistle, but it remained, and that was the most important thing to him at that moment.

After a while, he met other flower-people and birds. He was afraid of meeting them for the first time. He was afraid they would chirp, touch him with their wings. He was very surprised when he saw them. They had no wings!!!

They embraced him in friendship, holding him tenderly to their stems. The leaves rustled with gentle words of understanding, rustling about how they were coping without wings. He felt like he was in his own greenhouse, or maybe even better.

The flower-birds silently guessed what ailed him, noticing every tiny bug that gnawed at his leaves. Slowly, the little gardener recovered. The leaves were gaining color, the petals regained their healthy red hue.

The rose was still there. Still hostile, prickly, but no longer rustling with disbelief.

The little gardener felt he had to make up for lost time.

He felt within himself enormous reserves of love, warmth, tenderness, and understanding. He began helping other flower-people and birds. He spent entire days and nights preparing recipes and nutrients for other flowers. He also discovered new abilities within himself. At first, with disbelief and surprise, he noticed that the stamens of his flower acted like antennas. They picked up the signals of other flowers. Each day, stronger and stronger, more distinctly. He felt with every nerve of his leaves what they rustled, as well as what they refused to rustle. He longed to try the opposite route. He had two favorite flowers in this group – a mature peony and a beautiful tea rose. He focused his efforts on them. He tried to impart to these flowers a part of his energy, love, and tenderness, a part of himself. The tea rose, in particular, fascinated him. In her leaves, curled with fear, her petals quivering with nervousness, he saw a certain nobility, a glimmer of something fleeting, inscrutable. And though she belonged to another gardener, he loved her deeply. It was a love unlike any he had for his own rose. A love pure, spiritual, platonic, and brotherly, but still love.

He watched with joy as she transformed before his eyes, as she unfurled her leaves, as she slowly blossomed and gained a will to live. He was glad that his efforts were not wasted. He resolved to watch over her, to care for her. After all, roses were his favorite flowers.