She closes her eyes and sees her new life. 
Simple, perfectly balanced home.  Four rooms, each the same size.  Bathing room, Sleeping room, Eating room, Learning room. Each room contains only natural wood, accompanied by grey, beige or white, and lots of empty space. Each room also holds red.  Red towels in the Bathing room.  One red painting in the Sleeping room.  A red bowl filled with grey and white stones in the Eating room.  And in the Learning room, a large red book with hand drawn characters, always opened beside a stack of white paper and a red pen.   
Surrounding the house, gardens.   One flower only, but growing in every crevice, every hillside, every fold of land. Bright red tulips.  Springtime tulips budding with red and pink and promise.  Tulips glowing into summer, golden-red, warm to the touch.  Russet-red tulips, like tiny trees, dancing with the autumn wind, but never shedding their leaves.  Tulips blooming through winter, silver-red goblets filling with quiet, white snow.  In her new life, tulips have become immortal. 
In her old life, her dreams sometimes featured flying with a wise teacher in a hot-air balloon.  “Land here,” she shouted, and the Teacher guided them down to the field of red that looked like flowersInstead, it was a battlefield, strewn with bodies, everything covered in blood.  “Up, please!” She screamed in horror. Later, she looked down to see another field flowing with red.  “No, no,” she begged as the Teacher guided them down once more. This time, it was a field of tulips – magnificent, resilienttranscendent tulips. 
“You always have a choice.”  The Teacher slowly disappeared and left her dreaming of red as healing, red as wisdom, red as life becoming death becoming life again. Red as an eternal question, and its deepest answer. 
She has made her choice, and now she is living in the new life. She may have died, and discovered that death is a gentler, more satisfying version of tumultuous life.  She may have chosen bone-white stillness, with a harmonizing red for remembering.   
Or she may have simply chosen tulips.
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    Susan Dawson
    Susan Dawson(@susan-dawson)
    2 years ago

    The reds in your story remind me of poppies. In the UK they are worn in November to represent remembrance.

    Christer Norrlof
    Christer Norrlof(@christer-norrlof)
    2 years ago

    I find your story very intriguing, Juma. The choice (!) of the color red as a recurring theme holds the story together and gives it depth and adds symbolic meaning to it. Your thoughts about life, death and choices we have to make, makes me curious to read more that you have written.
    Could it be Carl Gustaf Jung’s big, Red Book which lies open in the Learning Room?

    Eric Radcliffe
    Eric Radcliffe(@eric-radcliffe)
    2 years ago

    I red (read – ha, ha) an article on the colour Red, and evidently it gives off more vibrations than any other colour, a powerful symbol. Did you Juma actually have the dream in the story? Am I right in thinking that this is a personal story to you, because it is so thought provoking. Choices are never easy, as Christer points out, always personal. I would like to hear from you… Read more »

    Lotchie Carmelo
    Lotchie Carmelo(@lotchie-carmelo)
    2 years ago

    I love your story about red ♥️ because red for me and for my family is our favorite color. Our car is color red with white, our motorcycle is red and black. Everything with red is always our choice. Red for me symbolizes power, luck and wealth.

    Katerina Bizirtsaki
    Katerina Bizirtsaki(@katerina-bizirtsaki)
    2 years ago

    I loved how you used the color “Red” and added a new meaning to it. Another lovely story, Juma!

    Linda Rock
    Linda Rock(@linda-rock)
    2 years ago

    I’m really enjoying discovering earlier stories written before I joined Voice.club and this one in particular Juma. Also, reading your comments gives me a clearer understanding. Although I love the colour green, red had always featured in my life. I wore a red dress at my engagement party, a red suit when I was promoted and red hair when I felt rebellious! I dream a lot too, not always remembering them, but… Read more »

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