Roses Are Made with Vanilla

     Salutations, dear readers.


     As I mentioned before, my vexatious blog is malfunctioning again, and is not allowing me to add pictures.  Generally this puts me off of blogging; I find adding pictures is half the fun.  Tonight, however, I feel like blogging, pictures or no.  So, I shall tell you a story.


    
      I sat quietly in the passenger seat of my mum's car, looking out at the night sky. I was going to attend some free seminar. What it was about, I had no idea, but it something to do, and it was free.

     As we pulled in the parking lot, I received a text. It was from an acquaintance of mine-- Ben, and said:

     'Hey. Jerry and I are here too. There's a coffee machine inside; they're giving away free coffee.  Can you get us each one?'

     I thought 'How did they know I was here...?' but I simply replied 'Sure'.

     'Who was that?' my mum asked.

     'It was Ben,' I replied. 'He and Jerry are here, and they said there's a coffee machine inside, and asked me to get them one.'

     'Why don't they get their own coffee?' Mum asked.

     I shrugged. I didn't really know or care; I was just pleased that I was about to have some coffee.

     Once inside the building, Mum and I walked about until we found the coffee machine. It was, in fact, a Frappuccino machine, complete with soft-serve ice cream.

     'Alright then, I'm going to go,' my mum said. 'Here's some money, in case you need it,' she said, putting some dollar bills and a few coins into my hands.

     'Thanks, Mum,' I said, pocketing the money.

     'Text if you need to,' Mum added.

     'I will,' I replied, and waved as my mother left the building.

     I made myself a Frappuccino, and two others for Ben and Jerry.  Laden with frozen caffeinated beverages, I made my way down the hall to the theatre where the seminar was to be held. I looked about for the intended owners of two of the coffees which were freezing my arms, but found them nowhere. I shrugged, and found a seat near the stage on the left side of the room. The seats around me were empty, so I made use of the two nearest cup-holders to deposit the coffees in, and sat down to enjoy mine.

     Eventually, the theatre darkened, the audience found their seats, and the curtain rose, revealing...what were they? I blinked up at the group of..."people" on the stage. They were sort of greenish, in a way, with features that weren't altogether human. They looked very anthropomorphic.

     The one who approached the microphone was evidently their chairwoman. Chairwoman of what? Who knows. She was large, and stately, and had a very big face.

     She began talking, but I didn't catch a word she said. She seemed to be talking about non-human matters, and I was busy trying to figure out what was going on, and what kind of seminar this was supposed to be.

      'What are they?' I asked myself as I sipped my Frappuccino. 'Bug...creatures? Plant creatures? Yeah, they look plant-like; let's go with that.'

      Having settled that, I recalled my attention to the plant-alien-chairwoman-thingy, who was still babbling a lot of random-sounding nonsense. I turned and looked around the room. At the back of the middle row of seats, I spotted Ben and Jerry. Regardless of the fact that a seminar was going on, I called out in a very loud stage whisper--

      'Heeey! Ben! I got your coffeeees!'

       I waved one of the coffees at him. He didn't hear me, apparently; he simply smiled and waved back at me.

      'Oh well,' I thought. 'I'll give these to them afterwards.' I resumed my seat and turned back toward the stage. I vaguely wondered if anyone was vexed at me for disrupting...whatever was going on onstage, but a brief glance around the room showed me that no one seemed to have even noticed.

      The chairwoman was inquiring in a stately, impressive voice whether anyone had any matters of concern to be addressed. I looked about the dark room. Most of the audience were human men in business attire, but there were a few among them who appeared to be of the plant-alien race.

      Three of them rose and approached the stage; one male, one female, about the size of 10-year old children, and one tiny little one that trailed behind them. It was pink, and wore pink. It appeared to have wings, or maybe that was just its clothes.

     'She's so pink,' I thought as I languidly sipped my coffee.

     The two larger ones addressed the chairwoman in tones of deep concern--

     'We're missing one of the four components of roses!'  said one of them in its high, plant-alien voice. 'If we don't remember what it is, the roses of the world will cease to exist, and there will never be roses again! Here we have the first two components...'

     'They make roses?' my thoughts interrupted.

     '...and here's the fourth component-- vanilla,' it went on.

     'Roses are made partly of vanilla?' I thought. 'Who knew? I sort of wish I'd payed attention to the first two "components" they mentioned.'

      I shrugged. It didn't really matter. It wasn't as though I planned on making roses any time soon.

     The chairwoman looked aghast. She looked at the little plant-aliens with eyes wide, or so they would have been, had not her eyelids been so large and drooping. She then looked out at the audience.

      'This is terrible!" she resounded. 'Does anyone here know what the fourth component of roses is?'

      There was a general shaking of heads and shrugging of shoulders from an audience of human beings, who, like me, hadn't realized that roses were made up of four components (one of them being vanilla), and created by a race of botanical extra-terrestrials.

      'We must hold a conference amongst ourselves, and try to solve this,' she said, struggling to regain composure. 'There will be a brief intermission.'

      She turned around with a sweep of...whatever it was she was wearing, and disappeared behind the curtain, followed closely by the rest of the plant-aliens.

      'Okaaaay...' I thought.

      I looked about the room. The lights were on, and I now had a better view of the audience.  Ihe turned around and looked directly behind her. The entire section was empty, save one man, sitting a few rows back.

      Chewing on my straw, I looked him over.  He was smartly dressed, in a black vest, trousers, over-coat and a fedora pulled well over his face. He sat with his legs crossed, typing away on an iPhone.

      'So...' I addressed him.

      He looked up from his phone.

      'What are you here for?' I enquired, without much enthusiasm.

      'Ah dunno,' he replied with even less enthusiasm.

      'Mm.'

      After which exchange, I turned back around, and finished my coffee.

      'Aw, my coffee's gone...' I thought sadly.

      I rose from my seat with Ben and Jerry's cups in hand, walked to the back of the room, and stood before them, holding the half-melted beverages out to them.

      'Here are your coffees,' I said.

      The two men smiled, and held up the cups already in their hands.

      'We couldn't find you, so we got our own coffees,' Ben replied.

      'Oh, okay,' I said. To myself, I thought-- 'Well why didn't they do that in the first place; now I have two extra coffees. Oh, wait; that's not really a problem...'

       I returned to my seat and began to work on my second Frappuccino.

      At that moment, the chairwoman and co. came bursting forth from behind the curtain with a flourish.

      'We have found the fourth component of the rose!' she cried joyfully.

       We, the audience of humans, didn't quite know how to respond to this. A few of us clapped lightly. Everyone looked a bit puzzled over the whole business.

       The tiny pink plant alien stepped in front of the stage.

       'She's soo pink,' I thought. 'I like her shoes...'

       Suddenly, Little Pink Shoes pressed a button, which filled the theatre with loud dance music.

      'Let's party! she cried, in a remarkably high, squeaky little voice.

      'Whaaaat...?' I thought.

       She began to dance, and then all of the plant aliens, including the chairwoman, began to dance as well. A chorus line of plant-alien showgirls in shiny dresses appeared on the stage, and began to dance in a 1960's fashion.

      'Where did they come from?' I wondered.

       One after another, the human audience began to rise and dance. I blinked at the spectacle for a moment, and then rose to leave.  As I was making my way up the aisle, Ben suddenly appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and seized my hand.

      'Let's dance!' he shouted above the noise.

      'Whaaaat...?' I thought again.

       At that very moment, a random stranger with a moustache showed up on the other side of me, and grabbed my other hand.

       'Let's dance!' he likewise suggested.  (The reader will perhaps recall that I was the only human female in the room.)

       'Who...?' I thought.

        I didn't want to dance, I wanted to leave. I wondered how to extricate myself from this predicament, as the two gentlemen glared at each other over my head, and tugged on my arms. I glanced over to where I had been sitting.

      'Oh no, I forgot my coffees!' I thought.

       I was about to excuse myself on that pretext, when suddenly, the man with the fedora and iPhone loomed up behind me, grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me out of the grasp of Ben and Moustache-Man.
                                                                               The End.