This week's Zelda's Inferno exercise: write a character sketch. I've always wondered about the backstory of the guys I see selling roses around Fell's Point, so I made one up:
once he was a freedom fighter
twenty years ago he and his
Mujahideen warrior-brothers
were the fear in the night for
the soldiers of the Red Army
the fear that drove the
invaders out of their country
in one bad firefight, his unit cornered
he snuck up behind the Russian platoon and
leaping from the shadows
stabbed three men in their throats, one at a time
their blood covering him
straining his arms and chest a deep red
he thinks on this only occasionally, now
sometimes the red of the roses he sells reminds him of how the warm blood of the men he killed
cooled and dried on his skin
the red of the roses he sells to young men in
the bars of Fells Point
the roses he sells to the men to give to the women they're seducing
in the rain, in the heat, in the cold, he walks the streets
"Roses", "Roses for the pretty lady"
he makes just enough to live on
just enough to pay his share on the apartment he shares with three cousins but
he does not mind
it is luxury
just to be alive
he remembers the rocky hills
nights in the freezing rain with withering machinegun fire cutting into the bodies of friends
and he will never complain about anything
once in a while, a drunken young man insults him
or some bigot sticks a foot out to trip him, or pushes him, as he walks by
these men do not know how close
they have come to fast death
they do not know how
roses are the color of blood