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Friday, October 20, 2017

"Every Rose has its Thorn" by Luke F.


            Rose sat, awaiting his arrival. The clothes were washed and hung to dry, his dinner had been placed in the oven to keep warm. The entirety of their apartment had been tended to in an effort to erase as many traces as possible of the turmoil from the previous night. The table that previously held Rose’s favorite vase was now empty and bleak, while the shattered remains of the vase littered the bottom of the trash can. The aroma of the flowers outside sept in, masking the stench that emitted from the ashtray that sat on the nightstand next to his chair. Rose looked around, ensuring that she had plucked all imperfections from their places. She didn’t want to give him any reason to come home and condemn her, to expose her imperfections, her insecurities, her thorns. A wreath of ash accumulating around his ashtray caught Rose’s eye, sending her into an anxious rush to clean. If there was a mess near his favorite spot in the entire apartment, no matter how small, he would not be pleased. As Rose lifted the ashtray off the nightstand, she froze. The clinking of keys entering the deadlock sent Rose into a state of stagnant panic as memories from countless nights weeded their way into her mind. They became a valley of dryness from which no good could come, a concrete prison in which she could not escape, a nightmare. Rose snapped out of her haze, and he was standing in the doorway, staring at her. His mouth was slightly open, eyebrows converging on one another, he was angry. Rose glanced down to her feet, where she found his ashtray, his crystal ashtray given to him by his deceased father, shattered on the floor. She knew, as she did most nights, what was coming, and like most nights, she was not ready.
            The rampage began at that doorway and trailed throughout the entire apartment. There was stomping, pounding on the walls, but worst of all, there was the shouting. He barked the same insults as he did most nights, but it was all the same to Rose, it all was painful. No matter how often it happened, Rose never could drown out the agony bestowed on her by his judgement of her flaws, his scolding of her thorns.

            “You did that on purpose didn’t you? Because I knocked over your little vase, huh? This ashtray was worth more to me than anything, do you just not have common sense? Sometimes, I swear, you’re just the most brainless person I have ever met!”
           
            Thorn.

            “I can’t believe you! Always trying to get back at me, never doing anything productive. I work all day, six days a week, and what do I come home to? A laid-off failure who doesn’t even care to try learning to cook anything new for the only person who bothers giving her any time of day! I don’t even know why I even try with you anymore.”

            Thorn.

            “All I want in life is to be happy, and all you ever want to do is keep me from that! So selfish, so useless, just a sack of dead weight that I have to carry around because of an old ring.”

            Thorn.

            He had made his way into the bedroom, and after the door slammed shut, the lights turned off and the noise stopped. Rose looked around, seeing the path of destruction that followed his path. Broken glass littered the carpet, his chicken was splattered all over the floor of the kitchen, and the picture of her mother was knocked off of the wall next to the bedroom door. Rose looked down, and a foliage of ash and shattered ashtray infested her feet. She hadn’t moved an inch. A tear emerged from her eye, ran down her poppy-red nose, and dropped like dew into the patch of soot on the floor. Soon after, many more came. Rose didn’t know why she was crying, she should have been used to the insults by now. This was normal, it was always like that in her relationship. She wilted to the floor, burying her head in her knees, a steady rain pouring from her eyes. She was too scared. Too scared to leave, too scared to find something new, too scared to admit to herself that she deserved better.

            Thorn.

            Rose awoke the next morning still on the floor, ash still on her feet. She checked her surroundings, knowing he was already off at work, but too timid to get up without certainty. She began to clean, sweep up the glass, scrub the kitchen tile, fix her mother’s picture. She cleaned until the rampage was at least visually nonexistent. She didn’t want anything below his standards. She took the now dry clothes off of their hangars and placed them in the closet, found a new recipe for the chicken she was to make for him that night, and fixed anything else she could. By the time she was done, she sat down at the kitchen table, looking at the clock, knowing it was time. He would be getting home soon. Rose sat still, preparing herself for the arrival of her one, true,

            Thorn.

20 comments:

  1. Lauren Elizabeth WrightOctober 23, 2017 at 2:29 PM

    I love the way you followed each of the heartbreaking events Rose experienced with "Thorn." I felt that it really did a great job of emphasizing how each thing that happened hurt her more and more. This was written very descriptively and was highly successful at portraying what was occurring to the reader. I like the plot that you came up with; it was a sensitive topic filled with emotion that must have been difficult to write about, and you did a great job. Nice!

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  2. Wow I really really enjoyed reading this. I absolutely loved everything about it. I though it was a well thought story and the images were so vivid that it felt like I could picture the entire thing in my head. Great work !

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  3. I absolutely loved the flower-y imagery that you used throughout the story. The fact that her significant other's name was actually thorn is something that causes me to ponder the true meaning of this story, is his name being Thorn mean that he's one of her mistakes/flaws? Regardless, I loved this entry!! :-)

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  4. WOW. This is the best entry I have read so far. Throughout the entire entry you could feel every emotion on how Rose felt. Also there was tons of imagery and you were super descriptive as well. I loved this so much. I hope you write more on this entry because this just took my breath away.

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  5. Wow great job Luke! The imagery of your story is so vivid it's amazing! I overall really enjoyed reading your piece...

    Eddie Avila
    Period 1

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  6. I don't hear about domestic abuse very often nor do I ever read any stories involving it, so this came as a surprise to me. I wasn't sure what to expect when I found this story, but I'm glad to see that I didn't miss out on reading this. The way you described the setting and built upon the background for the characters really helped to create a sense of dread as you slowly find out what exactly happens and what will happen to Rose. I don't condone such behavior from the abuser, but I can see the struggle that an abused may have when confronted by the reality of their situation and how hopeless it may seem to them. I feel like you really did a good job showing this in your story.

    - Justin Presto (Per. 1)

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  7. I liked how you developed different connotation for "thorn" which really captivates the kinds of emotions that are felt by this character and how it ties into the end. This piece was very detailed as both character's actions are thoroughly described. Good job!

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  8. This was such an amazing piece. The imagery was so vivid. I really enjoyed reading this piece
    -Eric Duong

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  9. Dang man. The connotation is something simple to understand, yet so complex at the same time. Amazing!! Every time I read the word "thorn", I knew the main character Rose was being attacked and hurt more and more and it allowed me to almost feel a sense of empathy for her, as if I was in her shoes. Great job XD

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  10. what a piece you wrote, it's truly so well structured with the repetition of "thorn" making such an impact upon the reader and giving such importance to the title, which in particular stands out in the last line of the writing, where the man in depicted as the thorn and it doesn't reference to the woman in this one case, truly artful!!

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  11. Great piece of work. Very realistic. You focused a lot of the fact that the female had a lot of "thorns", however, I would have like a little bit on how this person was a "rose." If the name was just a pun, disregard my complaint.

    Erl Lee

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  12. Though this is a short story, to me, the charactes were really well-developed. I only see them for a few hundred words, but I really feel their pain and anger and emotion through your writing and imagery. I also liked how you started off the piece with the contrasting elements of perfection and the dysfunction that has been hidden. It kind of threw me off for a second when everything changed. Overall, I really enjoyed reading your story. Great job!

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  13. Wow!!! This was so heart wrenching. You used imagery and diction to really capture her emotions, you did that so good in fact that I almost feel like I was feeling her pain and sorrow. I really am in disbelief with how thought out and well this was written. Kudos to you!

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  14. What an exceptional story, you did an incredible job balancing Rose's thoughts with the dialogue of the husband, without making either one stand out more than the other. Your piece was very descriptive and even though you didn't use many words, you created a whole world. The adding of thorns was very clever and it was really impressive (and also a little sad) how you managed to capture how a lot of people feel in a domestic violence situation.

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  15. I was surprised (in a good way!) once I started to read your story because I interpreted the title to be something completely different than the actual context of your story. I loved how you built the connotation with the word "thorn" to describe the hurt/pain that Rose was feeling and your descriptiveness really showed how his words affected her each time. Your vivid imagery made me feel like I was there with Rose, witnessing what was occurring.

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  16. Alejandro QuintanillaNovember 8, 2017 at 7:28 PM

    This was an excellent piece of writing that was very dramatic and every moment was filled with tension. You had great description balanced with the tragic thoughts of Rose that truely showed the trouble she faced daily and the inclusion of "thorns" between paragraphs really heightened the piece as a whole.

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  17. LUKE!!! From the moment you gave me a little preview of this piece I already knew I was going to love it. This really captures the horrific reality of abusive relationships. I really felt the anger that Rose should have felt reading it. :(

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  18. Intriguing piece. I especially loved your use of the single word "thorn" because it is open to many connotations and interpretations. It is impressive how you were able to capture so much emotion and meaning behind a single word. I also loved how you used symbolism in order to more delicately address such a sensitive topic. I think it really added to the overall effect the story had on the audience. Great work.

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  19. Luke, you are such an amazing writer. This piece really left me breath taken, because of the unexpected, complete 360 of Rose. I love how you italicized thorn to really emphasize what was truly important in this piece, and even the amount of times it was mentioned. In a way, everyone has their own personal thorns, just like Rose, which is a great connotative meaning to this piece as well. Overall, fantastic job!

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  20. Although there were implications, I would love to see more background behind the relationship between Rose and *him*. I feel a little "left out" not knowing how Rose was put in that situation. Regardless, you definitely captured, in both a literal and figurative sense, the fragility and pain of a rose and its thorns. The descriptions of Rose's thoughts were especially compelling, and you can't help but feel infuriated at the man for essentially stomping on her.

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