The city of Jacqueminot
In Jacqueminot, people’s hearts are exposed and form the shape of a rose.
For every heartache they experience, they lose a petal, and If all the petals fall, they die. Sorrow comes in many forms from breaking up with someone, to falling out with a friend. Most of the residents considered others feelings, but some were selfish, which caused others petals to fall.
The people with the most petals became arrogant and thought they were better than those with fewer petals, who were kinder. A hierarchy formed, those with a full bloom took charge of those less fortunate.
For years nothing changed, and people took to stealing petals to move up the chain of society, resulting in murders across the city. The fewer petals (known as Petals) went into hiding, fearful of those with more petals poaching them. The fuller petals (known as Bloomers) were disgusted by the Petals brown withered leaves, so built a wall around the upper city to keep them out, this suited everyone.
One day everything changed, when a man in his 70s climbed over the wall to visit the Petals. His heart was a full rose, vibrant and red, but he had a humble soul. For every person he saw with one petal left, he gave them one of his petals. An act like this had never been done before, and at first, people were wary of his presence, but when they witnessed his petal making a person’s heart bloom into a new rose, they begged for his help.
He went door to door, demanding to see anyone with just a petal. As he walked around the city, his pace slowed as his heart grew weaker. Determined to visit every Petal in the city, he carried on, fuelled by the joy he saw in their faces, when their hearts blossomed a new rose.
Eventually, he had one petal left and one more home to visit. Inside a boy was coughing, his pale face and withered petal indicated his time was nearly up. The old man pulled his petal off its stem and gave it to the boy, who tried to resist. The old man placed his petal on the boys heart, collapsed to the floor and died.
News of the old man’s heroic gestures reached the city, and the Bloomers had a meeting to discuss what to do. They were fearful of a riot, but when they heard singing coming from the Petals, who had joined hands by the wall and held up candles, they knew what they had to do.
First, they tore down the wall and built a garden in the centre of the city. In the garden, they buried the man and erected a statue of him holding out a petal. Over time the garden grew rose bushes around the statue. No one had ever seen a rose bush, and when a girl with few petals, plucked a rose from the bush and placed it on her heart, her rose fully bloomed.
I am challenging myself to write a 500-word post a day for 30 days. I will choose a random word from the dictionary and to make this challenge more complicated; I will use the same word to create posts on Twitter and Instagram. I will create a haiku for twitter and post a photo on Instagram. If the word I choose is too obscure to make a post, I will choose another word.
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