The Human Rosebush

By Frederic DOILLON

A tale about a young girl and her rosebush.

Brought up in an natural alphabetical paradise, Julia is shrouded from the outside world. One day, out buying a rosebush with her mother Jeanne, Julia espies a withered stick on the ground. She's convinced the stick is calling out to her. Calling it her little rosebush, she brings it home to coax it back to life.

One gloomy day, the family move to Paris. On the way, Julia falls asleep, her rosebush pressed against her. When she wakes up, the rosebush has vanished. It must have grown inside her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Jan 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781071528402

Book preview

I

Julia came into the world laughing. From the window looking out onto the garden, her young mother Jeanne was admiring the gardenias. A group of old women circled round them. They came and went, whirling, twirling, all trying to take charge of the little one. They then led her back, rosy all over, for her first feed.

Julia didn’t go to school before she was six. This was Jeanne’s decision. Hermann, her father, heaved his shoulders and raised his eyes to the sky. But the young woman held firm. Rather than the school of wooden chalky benches, she preferred the school of life: gardens, cultivated plants, wild plants, trees instilled with sap, dazzling flowers of light. Rather than knowing the word of man, she preferred her child to learn about the flight of butterflies, the language of swifts and the science of bees. The knowledge of man could certainly wait until she turned six. It would still come, just slightly later, with its internal wars, financial crashes, Euclidian distances and radioactive matter.

In any case, Julia was a very gifted young child. At three, she already knew how to read. She’d learnt to read by assiduously studying the little tags you find below a rare species of plant; the species whose name you fear losing and mixing up with another.

At the bottom of the garden there was an alcove. This alcove was covered with Aristolochia, whose long yellow tubes welcomed numerous colonies of insect all year round. A bit further in, bouquets of Borage were growing. Surprisingly furry, they budded haphazardly in the middle of a brick pile. These red bricks appeared not to have moved for decades. Within were housed several proud Teasels, whose scruffy heads peered down from up high. When rescaling the narrow path running by the garden’s stone wall border, Julia could see tiny forests of Dactyl; their small hands clashed with even the tiniest breath of wind. High above, an old European maple was arguing with the Ferns over who had the best make-up. The tree stretched its twisted branches out towards her. Every October, this European maple dispersed its whirling samaras into the colourful winds of Autumn. Heading back towards the centre, Julia found the famous clump of Gardenias; a plant her mother adored. It was the centrepiece to all the world’s attentions. Its scent originated from beyond the mountains. Julia breathed it in. It tasted like a sweet dream she could never grow tired of. To continue this exotic touch, her mother had planted a young Henna. The tree had delicate branches and small white, dishevelled flowers. Julia loved looking at these flowers even if she didn’t quite know why. At the foot of the Henna there stood a family of recompensed Irises, half-cultivated, half-wild. They displayed their rhizomes without complaining. Beyond the Irises were three Jojobas. Several metres tall, their seeds had come from a Mexican priest who’d walked past the little village by accident. The Jojobas had become strong and vigorous, which made Jeanne very proud. Beside them, a Kolatier was making use of its sinister black leaves. Julia took care to stay well back from this plant, as she did with the hedgerow of Laurier Roses, whose mixes of yellow, pink and white flowers she could only look at. At a very early age, she had learnt that despite their beauty, these bushes were highly toxic. She walked more calmly past the Marguerites, picking a few at random to strip down: he loves me, he loves me not. She then sat down pensively at the edge of a small pond. She looked with admiration at the Nympheas and their porcelain cups growing in the middle of the Lawn. In the meantime, she rolled several ears of Ophioglossum mechanically between her fingers. A few metres were enough for her to lie down under the imposing Quinquina, whose magic bark she would stroke to heal minor made-up illnesses. A couple of pink Saponaria lit up the garden’s corners with their light delicate flowers. Then came the Tea Trees from China, which blossomed 20 metres tall. This gave the picture a final faint flourish.

In a shadowy corner at the opposite end of the garden there