The Shattered Iris

Gardens are so mercurial, temperamental; even in the winters... and it was always winter here. It was a blessed sort of hell for the research my team and I were trying to accomplish.

We were supposed to create a flower that could survive the cold, the snow, the ice.We were failing. Had failed. The garden I kept was my only comfort in this desolation.

I had kept it in my room, at first, an Iris. She was a beautiful sort of flower. Delicate in her beauty and resilient in her strength. She had been my inspiration through all the frustrations.a

When worse came to worse I converted the hydroponics works into a sort of open air greenhouse. Safe from the wind but frozen like outside.

No one understood. One by one, they left us. I was so close, I knew it. I had to keep trying, keep testing. My beauties weren't ready for the winds yet... but... they were withstanding the cold without shattering.

I only had one chance left before I was out of test subjects.

I walked slowly back to my room. There is a price for science and I cried while I paid it; bagging my beautiful Iris, filling the bag with a warmed gas to keep her petals supple while I wheeled her down to the test area.

An eternity later I gazed at my specimen's test results. All readings looked hopeful. I had done it. We had done it. My beautiful Iris lay living, not dormant, beneath the layers of ice. Nothing had cracked, nothing had shattered. She lived and could move, could bend when the winds caught her.

My Iris swayed on the table as I touched her, my gloved hands trembling. Beauty, finally frozen in time, alive.