“Two-Minute Tuesdays” are a series of micro-stories written in five minutes or less.  Consider them “public practice,” like that guy who shoots free throws in the park.  Prompts are supplied at the bottom in case you want to try your own hand at one of them.

The Rose Garden (Pt. 2)

The witch was patient.  She and the man became friends, and soon they found themselves sharing lunch together in the woods behind the schoolhouse.  She never said that she loved him, but on the third Tuesday of every month she asked him for a rose.

The schoolteacher wanted to bring the woman a rose, but try as he might nothing would grow in his garden.  Finally he stopped by the flower shop one Tuesday morning and bought a rose.  It wasn’t as beautiful or sweet as his own had been, but it would serve.

This worked for months until one morning she caught him in the flower shop before school.  “What are you doing?” she asked him.

He hung his head and explained what had happened, how his flower garden still refused be anything other than a black, rotting mess.

“Show me,” she said.

The two of them went back to the man’s garden.  He showed her the garden, reluctantly, knowing that she would immediately shun him when she saw it.  But instead, the witch smiled, and told him to wait where he was.  She filled her hands with water from the well, breathed a quick spell over them, and then sprinkled the water on the dull earth.

Immediately the dead vines sprang to life, twisting and moving around each other with years of suppressed growth.  Roses, rich with color, bloomed everywhere.

And the schoolteacher smiled, picked a rose, and gave it to the witch.  They lived happily ever after.

(Prompt: Write a fairy tale.)