In a shady spot besides a lonesome path beneath a mountain range grew a wild rose. The sun climbed high enough above the range to cast its soothing rays on her only for a few months a year. Barely a soul came by to admire her fragile beauty. She never blossomed before June. It was only then that the caressing sunlight tickled her buds and made her open her blossoms. And it became warm enough for an occasional bee to find her delicate fragrant blossoms and be rewarded by sweet nectar for her effort. When August drew to an end and the nights grew longer, the sun no longer had the power to shine on the rose. It became too cold for the bees to visit and only a lost butterfly, swept by the wind from who knows where, came to rest on her fading blossoms, trying to find what little nectar was left before one last desperate attempt to reach lower grounds. The rose herself began to change. The petals fell off one by one off the blossoms, leaving the pistils naked and exposed, their ovaries beginning to swell. Her shiny green leaves faded away, turning yellow and after the first bite of the frost, shrivelled and brown before falling off. Come late October, only the thorny stems remained with a few swollen red hips on top, promise of a future life. And those hips weathered the winter, waiting for an animal to spread their seeds in other, friendlier and sunnier, places.
Instead, a lone climber came by, spotted the wild rose, felt sorry for her and decided to transplant her in his garden. He dug her out and potted her in rich soil in a sunny spot beside his house. He watered her and talked to her, wishing she would grow strong and beautiful. And indeed, the rose sprouted leaves earlier than ever and blossomed profusely throughout spring and early summer. But then, all of a sudden, her leaves began to wither, her buds dried away and she was dead before the summer was over.
Meanwhile, high up in the mountains, where a bird left its droppings, a tiny wild rose began to sprout.
