Black Orchid

My father owed it and he got it from his father who got it from his father in Germany and only God knows where he got it. What is it you may be asking? Well, it is an extremely rare black orchid that blooms once every two hundred years. They all made sure that it was watered and kept healthy even though the most adverse conditions. When my father died he stated in his will that my wife Sandra and I would be the new caretakers of what we started calling our little pain in the ass.

Every year that thing would bud but as soon as they formed the buds wilted, died and fell to the floor. The thing was it would only have one bud and no more.

I got the damn thing when I was 25. I just moved to Cleveland, got a new job as a, if you can believe it or not, a botanist and Sandra was pregnant with our first child. Then it came into the house. It stood more than seven feet tall and its leaves covered the one wall of the living room of our new house. To say that is was big was definitely an understatement.

We had it about a year and half when it budded for the 15^th time but this time was different. The bulb was different; I was well over four feet in length and nearly as wide. The leaves were different and just the feeling of the air around the orchid was different. It was hard to tell but we knew that something was going to happen, we just didn’t know when.

The baby was just starting to crawl in high speed so we had to watch her, watch the plant and male sure that we kept everything pretty much normal.

One day the bud started to open, it was very, very slow in opening but I could see the edges of the petals. They were the deepest purple I had ever seen. I just stood there and watched as they opened inch by inch. Oh my God, I thought, this is it. It really is. I pulled Sandra close to me and she had the baby on her hip. There was nothing left to do but what something that, for the two hundred years, my family had been waiting and praying to see and it was happening now.

It took hours to open. It reminded me so much of waiting in the hospital when Sandra was in labor except this time no one was trying to break my hands or reach down to rip my nuts off and I sure as hell not getting yelled at because of my gender.

Sandra fell asleep in the corner of the couch while holding the baby. I was wade awake all night looking for something to watch on TV and the thing was even with all those channels I could not find anything to watch so I settled on some old Jackie Gleason Show reruns and then I settled back and watched.

It took almost two day for the flower to open. The petals were shiny black and there was a violet tint to the edges. The inside of the flower were as black as night except for the very tip of the stigma was a bright blood red.

 I called Sandra out of the kitchen to look. “Oh my God,” she said. “That has got to be the most beautiful flower I have ever seen. How long will it be in bloom?”

“No one knows,” I answered. There has never been anyone live long enough to see it bloom before.”

Sandra walked over to the plant very slowly. “The smell of this plant is totally irresistible,” she said. “I have never smelled anything as sweet as this.” The smell was not just localized to right around the plant…it was filling the room and into the other rooms of the house and eventually to the entire neighborhood. A large group of neighbors filled the yard in front of the house all asking the same question…what was making such a scent the no one could resist.

I  decided to open his house to the neighbors so that they could see the miracle. One by one they filed into the room. The bloom was now completely open and anyone who saw it couldn’t speak. It may have been because of its size or it could have been the beauty they were looking at. There was no way to tell for sure but everyone was amazed.

They mulled around for several minutes, conversing and just hanging out. No one bothered to shoot a video or even take pictures of the incredible sight that was before them. That was really unfortunately because, although no one noticed, the petals starting turning into a grey powder that covered the floor below.

“Oh my God,” one guest finally yelled. “Look!”

As the group looked the petals were dying and not one by one they were all dying at the same time. Sandra ran over and tried to spray water on the plant in an effort to stop what she was watching.  As soon as all of the petals were gone the Leaves starting turning into the same deathly grey power. Then, silently it hit the stem. It died as quickly as the rest of the plant and by the time anyone had the chance to say anything.

After all the people left and Sandra and I were standing alone in front of a pile if grey dust and a big flower pot. I hugged her and told her that everything would be alright. Then we saw something that we never expected…a small green shoot was sticking out of the grey ash.

We laughed for quite a while as the sprout turned greener and greener as we watched. As I watched I went to the computer and wrote a note to my son. It read, “Son, this is a blessing from many, many generations of your family. Please raise this plant and leave it to any family you may have. It will be your legacy.” I sent as an e-mail to my lawyer with orders to be delivered when died. I know that he will be a good man and he will keep the tradition alive.