The Ever Alive Rose

Sifat sharmin

It has all finished. The good times, the bad times and the worse times everything is over. I’m over. And everyone is very anxious. And for them I gave a well reason to be a mystery. Life has its colors. Just like those china painting I use to do. I use to love painting. I use to love papa and him too. But everyone else , I don’t know . They never cared for me now they are the one aching to know what’s inside my house and that’s not really what they want to know , they want to know about the stuff they can see with open eyes and more the ones they cannot see. I heard people saying I wish I could capture this moment for a life time. I believed in that too. And believed so much in it that I even put that in my life.

Papa loved me no question asked but he never wanted me to met any other men . May be he waned to be the only man to love me till he lives. Though as a form of father daughter love. He never even let anyone near me. Somewhere inside me there was something that use to love that feeling.. I never wanted to let go off papa. I never had any one, no relatives who even cared. All these people who gathered today to see me inside my house more than to bury me they were never around for me. They took everything.

It was late night papa was feeling sick I sat beside him looking through the window wondering to myself “ look how big the sky is  and life is bigger than that”. And in this big world the person who would guide me through my big life stop living in that very moment. My papa stopped breathing and my insecurity started to beat its heart. This big old house,  a dead body and me. And all of those responsibilities. How funny a moment ago the person whom I thought will guide me through my life just left me with my burden felt like life. But I can never forget that papa will always protect me ass long as he is with me alive or dead it really doesn’t matter. Honestly as long as people don’t get to know that I lost my papa.

Three days have passes I don’t know how I have been sitting beside papa for so long. And my legs are so stuck cant even move. How hurtful can it be to see your papa die and what makes it worse is im sitting there and watching him rot.  I wasn’t even done talking to myself I hear the door knocking. Again the world came between what I love and me . They want to berry papa . I want the same but I don’t want him to go away from me . Where I can’t smell his affection and be afraid  of his punishments. I didn’t want to get rid of that feeling no matter how fantasized it is. But in this game I had to loose. They buried papa. Now I’m all alone. Me and this big house ,no money and all the taxes.

They have saved me from my taxes . Said that I don’t have to pay them so kind of them. Finally I gathered all my feelings . Everything has its bad side and good side. First I thought that papa left me with nothing but the house but now I realize he left me with something big and that is my freedom. Freedom to do anything that  my heart content. The freedom of being a part of Homer’ s life.

I love being with him. He is nice and kind and handsome and he is everything I wanted. I wish I could save every moment we have spent together. I wish I could make it a lifetime picture , not only in something only too look at but into something that I can live every day. Just like the way a girl thinks on her wedding day. The way she wishes to life every moment of that day and wish she could live it over and over again. But not everything lasts forever. This world took my father and now it’s after my love. They say I can’t be with him because he is not up to my level. They don’t even know me so when they talk about my life and who  I should  have in my life it makes me angry and laugh at the same time . Well I love him and I won’t let him go .Till my last breath till I live I will live with him .Even if he dies he will live in me and I promised him that . They called my cousin to threaten me that I better not see him anymore. And he left, left for long.

I waited and waited. I drew all my feelings on those china paintings. The bright the dull colors were my expressive feelings for him. I prayed for him to come back not for a while but forever and this time I won’t let him go. This time I will capture my best moments with him and live it every day of my life. I will live it every day as it happened for the first and the last time.

He didn’t show up. But the people for the taxes did. It was way hard to draw them away. I do the china painting it’s my passion not to make money. Labor can be sold but not passion not feelings and every emotion those breaths along with it. And as long as I keep my painting going I will feel my own emotions in many different ways, in many different colors.

Today when I woke up everything felt different. It felt like something good is about to happened . I’m tired of this emptiness of my own .I looked at the window and I saw the most awaited face. He came to see me , he is here. I opened the door and as quickly as possible he went on his knee and proposed to marry me . There was only word that I knew for that moment in life. Yes. I agreed. I finally will have what I wanted in life no one can take it away from me at least not this time .But what happened if the story changes ,what happens if he leaves me again . I can’t lose him. Not this time, not ever. He got me the prettiest wedding gown, the hair bow everything is just the way I dreamt .But we can’t get married unless we go to the church. If I do that everyone will see us together and try to put us apart again. I have been hiding him so long I can’t let it go wrong. But he wants to marry me with all the rituals. I’m afraid, I don’t want to lose this moment from my life, I want to capture it forever. And there is only one way to do it. Only one way to keep him with me in that room, forever. Where everything will be same the wedding environment, my gown , his belongings everything . And even the emotions somehow. If I can do this I will be able to capture these beautiful moments for ever and live then every day like its new, just the way I thought of it.

I went to the room he was getting ready. I offered him a drink with a smiley face . He kissed me and drank it. After this moment everything will be as I wished he will be with me forever. He fell asleep so deep so innocent I lied him down on my bed.

Since that day till today I always walk into that room felling like a bride and embracing him like that’s the first time it ever happened. My china paintings lost color. The season came and left, the leaves were painted with green then changed colors. But our love was always green. Picture perfect just the way I  have  imagined. There might have nothing left in him body but his heart is always there. I can see it beating fulfill with emotions.

Today when they went upstairs and found his body which has been declared to be a skeleton according to them but what is more lively then anything to me right now or ever . He is just sleeping with relief where he is sure he will always be safe in my arms . And no one can put us apart. From today I’ll be sure forever too that no one can ever set us apart. Looking from the sky me and Homer hold hands and laugh that they will never figure us out. And we will be together till eternity.

A Rose for Emily a short story by William Faulkner is a very interesting and unusual story to me . Sometimes I even have hard time guessing if it’s interesting or unusual. So when I was given an opportunity to re-write a story this was the first one that came to my mind. The way the story is told by the narrator, the timing, the environment, everything was unusual. The story starts from the ending of a real life time story of Emily. So I took a chance of re-writing this story in my different way which was an honest try to make the story sound a bit different keeping its real essence alive  but more interesting .

The narrator in the real story is Omni-limited third person. So the story to me sounds like a tale of someone narrated by someone else. So in my version of the story I put Emily herself as the narrator so this story can be seen from Emily’s eyes who had lived those situation. It came to me that no one can explain the causes and the reasoning of an event better than the person who was the center of the event.

The real story begins when Emily dies and everybody has gathered to see her house more than the dead body of her. “When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral “. This starting line of the story sounds very generous that people came for her funeral . But in my version of the story I wanted to show how Emily might have felt about the fact that people came in for her funeral  or  they came in to see how the house looks after so many years of them kind of being prohibited even to come near to her house . In the real story for the narrator Emily had died and though her story ended but  it left  the some of the  story unspoken , leaving some mysteries untold. But in my version Emily tells what she has done and was her valid excuse for her deed.

In the real version of the story the narrator jumps time, most of the events are not in any kind sequence . In my story I made a sequence so that the events do have clear relation so that the reader does not get confused about when the events took place.  In my version of the story every event is put in a sequence starting from Emily’s father’s death to the tax people then meeting Homer and then his coming and going back and forth to his death an finally her own death. In my story I also started the story from the end like the real version .My reason for keeping it unchanged is because unlike others stories it starts from the ending of a real life story goes all around and comes back to the ending which is the  originally the beginning .For me made the  story very unusual and I decided to keep it the same .And harm its original beauty.

In the real version of the story it talks about Emily not wanting to give her father’s dead body away. Which might seem crazy to the readers. But in my version of the story she explains the reasons why she denied giving the dead body away. She even explains how the death happens and what her emotional reactions about that were.

Emily kills Homer that’s how we see the story when we read the real version. Even the narrator sounds confused in this entire situation .But in my version of the story I put every details and every event that happened related to that event . Why she gave up the china painting classes , why she never let anyone in to her house , why she took the decision to kill Homer , and why she kept his body. About her feelings when, the society didn’t want her to be with Homer.

When the narrator narrates in the real story it include what he have seen and what they have heard which most Emily didn’t see or hear. But in my version Emily talks about things that she saw, she heard and she faced. So that kind of shifting will be seen in my version of the story. So in my version of the story there might be things that were not on the real version and there might not be stuffs that was on the real version. But the story line is kept the same.

In the real story the narrator talks about Emily’s life but from other peoples point of view. They are taking about Emily and the situations she came across in life but it doesn’t say how she felt during every event, it doesn’t explain how she looked upon the situation  when she had to face it. In my version of the story it’s all about Emily. She is more like the show man in my story everything that happened she had her own way to explain it. And for that her emotional sides come out in my story.

In this story I tried to make everything to be told from a first person prospective so that the story can be told more clearly. And everything that was unspoken could be revealed in my version of the story. I gave Emily a chance to talk about her life in my version, it was more like giving her a chance to speak herself. But any shifting that have made I tried my best not to harm the true beauty of the real story.