A Rose in a Sea of Roses

The collector stood in front of the canvas longer than she meant to.

At first there was only the sea of it, layer upon layer of blooms, the paint built up until the surface seemed to move. Then, slowly, one rose declared itself. It wasn't louder than the others, only more certain. She found her eye returning to it again and again, the way you notice one voice in a crowded room.

She came close and saw the evidence of the making: texture pressed into the surface, edges scraped back, colour allowed to run where it wished. She stepped away and the whole thing steadied into something calm and almost ceremonial.

She didn't think about whether it matched her walls. She thought about the days when she had felt like one among many, and the quiet relief of being seen anyway.

It hangs in her hallway now. She passes it on the way to make tea in the morning, and some days it feels as if the rose looks back.