Fred Aiken Writing

The young Princess Henrietta asked her mother and father for a present for her ninth birthday that would make all other gifts from previous birthdays pale in comparison. It seemed like a simple request at first.

“Can you have Darren the Gardener grow the largest tulip in the world?” she asked. Henrietta had been spending more and more time with the royal gardener, which they did not mind since it kept their young princess occupied and out of trouble. 

“Plus,” the Queen said to her King, “it will give her a skill that might suit her when she ascends. Just imagine it: Henrietta the Tulip.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

But rather than focusing on the logistics of what their daughter’s legacy might become, they decided to move forward with commissioning Darren to create the world’s largest tulip ever known. They asked for it to be finished before Henrietta’s birthday within a few months. Darren let the Queen and King know he would try his best, but reminded them that gardening was never a project that truly finished. Flowers grew and blossomed, before wilting into themselves, only to start the process all over again. The King and Queen, though, could hardly care about the specifics of Darren’s job, and merely asked him politely to ensure the tulip would be the largest known to man. 

Darren dedicated all of his time and energy into the Princess’ tulip. He lost sleep, his hair began to pepper, and the remainder of the royal garden began to suffer. At one point, the estate supervisor in charge of the aesthetic of the royal grounds in its entirety reproached Darren for his lack of care in duty to the garden. 

“I’m working on the Princess’ tulip,” he retorted.

“That does not mean that the rest of the garden can fall to waste. The royal grounds have a reputation to uphold.”

“I’ve been commissioned to create the world’s largest tulip.”

“How is it coming along.?”

“It’s beginning to blossom, but I would have preferred to have another year or so.”

“Yes, well, the Princess’ birthday is in five weeks. And the garden better be in tiptop condition when all the guests begin to arrive.”

“It will be.”

“It will.”

Darren doubled his effort, and worked as vigorously as possible to ensure the Princess’ tulip would be fully grown and the garden looked immaculate. On the eve of Henrietta’s birthday, the King and Queen visited Darren to ensure their daughter’s gift would be perfect. He assured him everything was fine, and there was nothing to worry about. Though when pressed to show them the flower, Darren balked and claimed that it needed to be a surprise for everyone, including their royal highnesses. 

The King and Queen relented to the gardener’s request to not view the tulip until the next day, despite both sharing trepidation of their plan to provide their daughter with the largest tulip ever grown being a complete failure.

Princess Henrietta unveiled her parents’ gift the next day, and she and several hundred guests stood in awe of what they saw. Before them stoop a tulip of massive proportion that could be seen for miles. The royal family pondered how Darren had hidden the gigantic tulip from prying eyes, though he remained suspiciously evasive about the topic. Instead, all he said was:

“It truly is a wonder to witness. But despite its size, I fear it might continue to grow. There’s no telling with flowers. I can tend to them, feed them, water them, place them in plenty of sunlight, and then just as quickly try to kill them, but ultimately they have a mind of their own. It could just as easily decide it wants to continue to grow.”

But the King and Queen dismissed their gardener’s fears as paranoia since, they reasoned, the tulip could not possibly grow any larger.

Yet the next day, that’s precisely what the tulip did. Imperceptible growth at first. But day after day, month after month, and eventually it became apparent that the Princess’ tulip would continue its growth spurt with no end in sight. The King and Queen contemplated chopping the tulip down, though their daughter would not hear of it. She adored her bulbiferous gift, and treated it as if the flower were a friend. She continued to feed it as Darren had, despite many within her family suggesting that Henrietta disengage from tending to the tulip.

The flower grew into the sky until it began to block out the sun. Princess Henrietta inherited her family’s kingdom, which had at that point become shrouded in the shadow of her tulip’s petals. Her political advisors pleaded with her to get rid of her childhood obsession with growing the largest tulip in the world, since it had now enveloped all of her subjects in darkness. But Henrietta would only listen to the advice of Darren the gardener, who had grown old and withered. He told the young Queen that all he ever knew was how to garden, and so all of his advice centered on growing plants not kingdoms. 

The tulip succumbed to gravity after decades of growth and even at one point its zenith touching the heavens. When the townspeople and Queen Henrietta saw sunlight for the first time in years they ran inside and began to wonder what next great flower to grow.