Death of a Rose (Short Story)

Rose had always been a sickly girl.

Today, it seemed far worse. Her father held his ear to her chest as she wheezed for breath, panting desperately for air.

“Papá, no puedo respirar.”  Came her panicked words. Felipe could only hold his daughter tightly. He grasped her hand in his, saying out loud the words that came so naturally in a time like this one;

 The Lord’s Prayer.

“Padre nuestro, que estás en los cielos, santificado sea tu nombre. Venga tu reino, hágase tu voluntad en la tierra como en el cielo ...” Felipe stopped, raising his head from his daughter’s chest. Tears spilling out from behind his eyelids as he gazed upon his daughter’s face.

Rose was gone.

   No, he thought to himself, No. This cannot be! Not my little girl, not my Rose! His heart sank as Rose went limp in his arms, sinking back down onto the filthy browning mattress she had laid on for months. Felipe sobbed loudly, crying to the heavens for an explanation,

  “¿Por qué, Dios, ¿te la llevas?” and like distant rumbling thunder, an idea made it’s way into Felipe’s mind. Sickness was the work of the devil, and through prayer, it could be healed. He had read in his holy texts that God had healed those who prayed, or were prayed for on holy ground suddenly became well again. But at this time, Felipe sought not a healing, but a miracle.

The determined father wasted no time, he gathered his daughter’s lifeless body from the mattress and bolted from his villa, running with all of his strength toward the one place he knew to be Holy.

  The Church of the Holy Immaculate Conception. A place he had worshipped since his boyhood. The one site in his entire small village that he had felt God’s presence. He stopped short of the front door, laid his daughter’s body upon them and began to pray. Every prayer he had ever memorized, every single one he had read in prayer books he had bought at church, every single praise, psalm, and holy word he could muster.

He prayed for what seemed like an eternity, and when he opened his eyes, the darkness of night had overtaken the church. His daughter still lay motionless on the steps to the holiest place he had ever known. He screamed to the heavens, pleading with all of his might that his Rose be returned to him, for God to be merciful and grant him, a man who had asked him for nothing, this one single request.

  But these requests went unanswered. The only sound in the entire square came from within the church. A steady humming, punctuated by millions of metallic clicks and clinks.

 It was the sound of coin counters. Busily, meticulously counting this week’s tithes.

Felipe wept bitterly, cupping his face in his dry, cracked hands as his heart broke anew. His daughter, his precious Rose was forever gone, and his God had forsaken him. Not just him, but this place.

For the church was no longer Holy Ground… It had become a den of thieves.