Thousands of white petaled flowers danced in the cliff top's chill breeze. Stuck in one spot as they tried their hardest to free themselves and tango with one another— or to saunter across the grassy plain into the heavenly blue beyond the cliff’s edge. But alas, they failed to uproot themselves. The soil they found themselves in acted as their jailers. Frigid and unmoved by their desire for freedom. Though the soil refused to let them dance, their fate was not shared by one flower. This lone flower was very much different from the rest. She was larger. Peach and pink, oh so full of life yet so close to death with her roots damaged and far from her soil. But this did not stop her. The lone flower danced alone gracefully between the others, blades of grass squished between her tattered roots with each bouncing step she took. The wind washed over her, making her leaves flutter against her stem, caressing it. Her petals were as soft as silk and flew through the breeze, rolling around her and trying to join the swirling gusts high above in the fluffy clouds. The warm oranges and pinks from the sunrise bathed her and made the dew that fell from her in drops glisten and sparkle.

The little white flowers looked up, pleading to join her in her Waltz. Their prayers were answered as soon as the lone flower noticed her imprisoned friends. She plucked them from their spots as she went, freeing them from the ground that kept them as trapped as she once was. They joined her in her dance. The soil loathed this. It tried to sink the flowers back into its muddy hold, but the lone flower lifted her friends high.

“My roots are too damaged to ever take hold again,” she said to the others, “I will keep us all from being tethered down ever again.”

The little white flowers clung to her leaves and whirled alongside her to the wind's melodic tune. The soil tried to speak to her, tried to tell her freedom was wrong, but she knew better and did not even humour it with an argument. She knew the soil was rotten, and she had a plan on how to rid herself of its petulant whispers.

The flowers danced to the cliff edge and stopped. Way below them were huge ocean waves that had their own gala. One far more grand than the one the flowers were having so high above. Currents that danced all across the world in lockstep, waves that weaved through rocks and swayed onto the sand. Roaring chants and cheers and laughing as millions of droplets swung one another over the slick shining rocks and onto the white sand. It looked so joyous and captivated the flowers.

“We can join that dance and be free,” the lone flower said, “Our soil might keep up alive longer than the ocean below, but what kind of life is that? To be stuck in one place until we die? We should dance and be free until our last! We should join the currents and dance all around the world! See something beyond this cliff edge!”

The little white flowers quivered with apprehension at the idea.

“Will the ocean really take us?” One asked.

“Has the ocean ever met flowers like us?” Another pondered.

“The ocean has seen many things,” the lone flower said, “We will tell it our names and I’m sure it will welcome each and every one of us below its waves.”

“Our names?” the little white flowers asked in unison.

The lone flower hummed and hawed for a moment before plucking one of her friends from her leaves and declaring, “You will be Hope!” She picked up another, “and you Joy! And you Wonder! Love! Laughter! Whimsy!” She continued on naming each flower in such a fashion, each earning a name worthy of their beauty.

And with that, the small white flowers cheered and leaped from her leaves and floated to the ocean below. They held each other as they giggled and spun in the winds that carried them down to their watery bliss below. 

The lone flower stood at the edge. The blades of grass squished between her muddy toes. The wind stilled and her fluttering, caressing dress drooped limply at her wobbly knees. Her eyes were puffy and pink against her pale peach skin, her lashes damp and clumped with tears that poured down her flushed cheeks. Her waist length hair, once soft as silk and straight as an arrow, cascaded over her shoulders in knots as the swirling winds had left it behind. The woman watched as all the flowers fell from the canopy she had made for them in her dress and plummeted off the cliff edge. She watched the whole descent into the treacherous ocean below— the sunlight that reflected upon it with hellish hues almost made the water look like lava. It was only polite for her to watch unblinkingly until the end, for each small white flower was a funeral. For her hope, her joy, her wonder, her love, her laughter, her whimsy— all things that had long withered and died somewhere within her. She even kept watching as the vicious currents sucked them under and tore them to smithereens. She watched as the battered remains of each named flower were bashed repeatedly into the rocks below. Once they had been completely destroyed she knew it was time to cast away all the awful things that festered inside her too.

And so, to end this dance, she took a bow.