A story about the farmer, the rose and the vase

It was the spring time, there were thousand of seeds were planted in the farm. Behind the farm, was a hill and the farmer lived there.

Rain came after the winter. A seed of rose wanted so much to grow into a flower in order to leave this farm. The sun arrived, the rose tried to get growing as much as it could.

The rose was the tallest, it was very long, and it brought up a big round bud which made the figure of the rose bended a little. However, it was still very beautiful.

The farmer came, he was early, which made the spring wind wondered. The tree said it was because the farm was going to pick up a flower for himself after the winter.

"They are all beautiful, just like last year and the year before." said the farmer. Surely, who did not want to be chosen?

"Look at this stem" said the farmer. "Is the day" said the rose. The farmer moved forward to the rose and picked it up. "So sharp" said the farmer when he found his finger was slightly breeding. "That's the price for a beauty"

The rose was so happy that it was chosen even thought it hurt so much when it was dragged from the ground.

When they arrived home, the vase was filled with fresh water. "That's where I going to thrill" said the rose. "That's where you are going to end" said the vase. "What?" asked the rose. "You are not the first one and you will not be the last one" replied the vase. "You are so mean" said the rose. "Truth is mean"

The rose was happy, it could get its own fresh water everyday. It then bloomed. "Look, that's why he chooses him, because I'm beautiful." "ha-ha, remember, JUST because, you are beautiful." said the vase.

The first few days were fun, the farmer appreciated the rose everyday he woke up and told the rose, how beautiful it was.

Until, the first petal started to fall. "What's happening" screamed the rose. "That's how a story ends" "What do u mean?" "Or, that's how another story begins" "What?! I don’t understand any of these?"

The petals were nearly all fallen, and its steam is no strong and hard. "What I would be?" asked the rose. "Like every one of us" replied the vase. "All I wanted to be was wrong?" "No. sorry my guest. What is a youth, like an impetuous fire. You have chosen yourself to bloom, as well as you have chosen yourself to fade."

The farmer finally approached again after these days that he had not came. “He is going to help me out!”. "Farewell my friend" said the vase. "Why?" asked the rose, and then it realized there was a flower held in the farm's hand. And that's how the last petal fell. - The Story Behind the Story

I wrote this story when I was twenty-five, living in the heart of Paris. I was young and inexperienced, but my heart was wide open to the world. Of all the memories I gathered in those years, this one belongs to a single afternoon.

It was after my French class at La Sorbonne. My friends and I were sitting in a café in Saint-Michel, doing nothing but watching the city move. We had just finished reading The Little Prince in its original French.

There is a strange magic in reading those words in their own language. When I read it in English as a teenager, it was just a book. But in French, it was a feeling. I was no longer a teenager; I was seeing the world differently, yet learning French made me feel like a child again. Because we were students, we were innocent. We did not have enough words to be complicated. We had to speak simply. We had to be honest. We had the minds of adults, but the tongues of children.

This "path of innocence"—this struggle to find the right word for a simple feeling—changed how I saw the world. It stripped away the noise. It made everything feel deeper, sharper, and more truthful.

In those days, I often wrote very short stories as gifts for my friends who were running late. It wasn't a complaint; it was just a funny way to spend the time while I waited. It is funny to look back now and see how those little gifts turned into a story that, years later, tells me the story of how I once saw the world.