A Single Fleck of Red and Green

      All of the half-cut wine barrels on campus are filled with beautiful flowers that glisten with hues of pink and red. Their leaves are healthy and their roots are strong. One barrel stands out among the rest. Its tendrils are weak, its petals wilting and its hues showing ever so faintly. Tragedy has been experienced by this plant. It's soil looks just as rich and nourished as the others, yet its flower continues to weaken. The stem is covered in drapes of brown, with patterns of green trying to fight their way through. As the stem grows weaker, the spectrum of colors on the petals grows darker, some petals have lost their color completely, wasting away in a sea of taupe. The only color standing out on the once spectacular plant is a single green stem with a head of red flowers. The plant is clearly dead, but not malnourished. One branch of the plant has managed to survive, its colors shining brightly enough to illuminate the entire structure. The image of death is weakened by the one striving branch. The liveliness of the green and the brightness of the red produces hope that the plant has not given up the fight to live. Until the green shine dissapears completely, and the red vanishes, the plant will not be forgotten. In a sea of brown, with such beautiful neighbors, a single branch illuminates the quad.