"The moment that you stepped into the room you took my breath away"

There are wilted roses in my room, stuck in a bottle of drinking water, and the scarlet is slowly curling to crusty black.

In Calcutta on Valentine's Day everyone would rush to buy overpriced roses, the flower-lady would twist up two blown roses with scattering pollen and pointy thorns in aluminium foils with a sprig of Gypsies.

I miss Gypsies. I miss the vagabond look of their tiny flower heads and the lime green of their stalks.

I miss how Gypsies make me happy, like a happy song, a good book, a quilt in the cold, or a nice long conversation about nothing in particular that makes you laugh.

I want Gypsies. Like, right now.

I want to sink my face into a huge, hulking mass of them.

Even though they smell of nothing in particular.