The Last Flower in the Kingdom

Once upon a time, there lived a princess in a large gray castle.

The castle was drafty and empty; only the princess and a handful of servants lived there.

The large gray castle lay in the center of a large gray kingdom.

In the center of the castle, on a pedestal, stood a single pot with ordinary soil in it.
In the soil of the pot grew a single flower, the only flower in the entire kingdom.

It was the last flower that anyone knew of. The kingdom had become very dry and lifeless and this one flower was maintained by the diligent care of the princess and her retainers.
They held out hope that someday their land would be filled with flowers again, but in the cold nights in the gray castle, sometimes they feared it never would.

It grew colder, the nights grew longer, and maintaining the last flower grew harder.
At last it began to snow.

It snowed inches an hour, it snowed hills in a day. It snowed a mountain of snow over the entire kingdom in a month.

The princess and her servants invited the village into the castle and there they shared their meager food and lit a fire to keep everyone alive.
After many months, a boy who was playing in the top of the tallest tower of the castle looked out over the snow and called down to everyone, "It's melting! the snow is melting!"
The sun had come out at last, with a vengeance. The mountain of snow melted, slowly at first, and then in rivers. The village was built upon a rocky hill and the castle too, so they weren't flooded as water cascaded everywhere, in increasingly warm rushes.

On the last day of winter, the last of the snow melted away and the earth was infused with water, so that it was mushy to walk on.
And lo and behold, when the villagers came out of the castle, when the retainers came out, when the princess emerged,
they found the ground was green and growing in the warm sun. The light, the water, and their hope had finally brought Spring, and with it life. And to their surprise and amazement, the hills surrounding the village and the large, gray castle were covered in beautiful flowers of every description.

The end.



And friends, Spring is coming.