Once upon a time...a daisy grew. It sprouted up in the middle of a large covered garden full of tulips, roses, carnations, orchids, and lilies. Amidst all these grand, colorful flowers, the daisy felt quite shy, insignificant, and most weed-like. It was, after all, only very small, very white, and very out of place in the well cultivated, brightly colored flower garden. However, the daisy determined to escape the notice of the girl who cared for the flowers, and quietly grew beside the lilies and roses, feeling very much like a weed and striving to look prettier.

Each morning, when the girl came out to water her flowers, the daisy stood as small and stiff as it could, hoping to blend in with the orchids. It secretly longed for the girl to reach out and caress its pale white petals and pour a gentle sprinkling of water at its roots, but it was too shy to ask for it and feared the rebuke it may get, as it was only a weed. And so, each morning, the daisy watched the girl lovingly kiss the soft bright petals of the tulips and give clear water to the carnations that reached eagerly up to her. And so, each morning, the girl departed without even a smile at the daisy, who looked in timid regret after her retreating back.

Every morning passed in the same manner. Every afternoon the daisy decided to work up the courage to ask for water, and every night, it went to sleep dreaming of someone to care for it. When the morning came again, however, and the daisy saw the girl coming, its determinations of the night before vanished in a puff of fear and it turned its face away and waited, trembling with shy anxiety, until she left again. The thought of being noticed as something different from the other flowers, the thought of being singled out, picked, and discarded with the weeds, made the daisy dizzy with fright. It hid its small white face.

Time passed, and the daisy began to grow weak. The soil around it dried up and cracked, and it had to reach its small roots farther and farther away to find even a little water. The orchids flourished and the roses shone brighter, but the daisy began to droop, and its petals lost their soft, feathery feel. One by one they fell to the ground, broken and twisted. The daisy felt the strength leaving its stem.

Very soon after, the girl came out again to care for her flowers. She hummed as she worked, pausing now and then to touch a leaf with almost reverent joy. As she worked, she soon came to the spot where the poor daisy grew. It was so weak it could no longer try to blend in with the other flowers, and so it simply hung its wilting head and waited for a rough hand to rip it out of the earth and toss it onto the pile of weeds to be burned. The last petal fell from its dusty face.

The rough hand never came. The daisy felt instead a cool, gentle touch upon its broken stem, and a finger reached out to stroke the shriveled petals that covered the ground at its feet. A drop, a single drop, of moisture fell to the cracked earth at the daisy’s roots, and it slowly, painfully turned its face upwards in wonderment. Using its last bit of strength, the shy daisy looked up into the eyes of the girl. Her face glistened where a tear had fallen, slipping down her cheek and dropping to the ground at the daisy’s feet. Its last strength gone, the daisy fell back against her hand, dead by the folly of its own fear.