That Lone Rose in that Desolate Land

Courtesy Google Images

Linking with The Sunday Muse for Muse # 31

Hello everyone, I apologize in advance for this one.  Story writing is my weakness and I ventured out of my comfort zone writing this one.

Hope is the lone bloom in the desert. ~Terri Guillemets

Her name was Silencia and the only world she had known was Eldernan.  A planet on the far side of the galaxy.  Many of the occupants had evacuated to other solar systems, but she had remained with her grandfather in his later years.  He had been gone for many months now, but her opportunity to flee had long passed.   The cities were full of shelters for the few that had stayed behind.  There had been 300 different shuttles arranged to get people out, but none of the shuttles had returned.  Fortunately, the storage pods of food and necessities had been enough so far.  The multitude were long gone, and the feared disease that had killed millions on the continent of Gronell had been annihilated by some scientists in that region.   The communication they had with the shuttles had been lost half way through the mission to other home planets, and the engineers and scientists had not been able to regain the connection to them.  Oddly, the climate suffered some strange changes after that time, and the land became unfertile in many areas. After a few years had passed, on days loud with machines doing construction the city, she would venture out to the desolate land of Pralo to find silence and try not to remember all that she had lost.  She would close her eyes and envision a different world.  One full of hope, beauty and life.  She would be wearing her long lost christine dress that was for the annual festivities in the city she grew up in, Rolem.   She would remember the songs and then sing them to what life was willing to listen.  Sometimes there would be a wild bird or rabbit that would cross her path briefly.  Other times, it was a few weeds or a grass hopper clinging to life.  The song was simple, but the melody was beautiful and would stick in your head for days on end.  She would find herself singing it through the streets and back to the shelter she had been at for the last 3 years.  “Reach for a rose…..but do not pick it from where it stands….just touch it’s beauty and then hold the beauty in your hand….reach for a rose….but do not pick it from the place it blooms…..just touch it’s beauty before it is gone all too soon.”  It was a song her mother sang during the days of normal living conditions of Eldernan.    It was like a lullaby, but for Silencia it had become an anthem, and when she sang it, she would reach out her hand to the most beautiful rose she pictured inside her mind.  She felt like she could relate to that lone rose in that desolate land.   If only just one shuttle would return, she thought.  She would gladly let it pick her up and take her away!