Inheritances are financially comforting, but can be dubious.
The previous owner of Lin’s florists had left more than just flowers behind.
There was something more annoying. And it wouldn’t take no for an answer.
🌹 👻 🌹 👻 🌹 🌹 👻 🌹 👻 🌹
Fresh blooms and a living that wouldn’t be shaken for some time.
Add working in a perpetually scented environment, and being a florist was easily the world’s most enviable occupation.
Mei Lin had inherited the florist shop when her father passed several months earlier. Flowers were flowers-they provided lunch, in a manner of speaking, every day.
She tended the blooms daily, and the once-struggling shop thrived under her care. Bouquet after bouquet was sold, and the cash register kept ringing. ‘
But one rose refused new owners. People would ignore it, even as its bright red petals gave a soft siren’s call. It was fresher than it had the right to be.
Mei Lin would prune it with the deft hands of experience and put it in a vase, only to find it lying, fresh and preserved, on the counter the next day.
🌹 👻 🌹 👻 🌹 🌹 👻 🌹 👻 🌹
The flower’s persistence was odd.
Very odd.
But Mei Lin brushed it off as the absent-mindedness of a florist trying to water plants and contain protesting blooms in coffin-like wrapping paper.
Then, it began manifesting itself in different places.
The counter’s drawer.
In the cactus pot, with an unwilling cactus as a stem.
In the staff toilet, where it turned up looking strangely–
Fresher.
A loving, yet cryptic note came with each appearance.
Thinking of you.
We should see each other more often.
With love,
_______________.
🌹 👻 🌹 👻 🌹 🌹 👻 🌹 👻 🌹
The rose’s changing location had Mei Lin’s mind shifting as well.
Until she couldn’t make out where it was.
So that she could sell carnations without mistaking them for violets, she decided to do a little research.
Even if it was her grandmother’s shop.
It had once belonged to a lady of Singapore’s pioneer generation, Ah Huay. Her love for one of her customers, Ah Chwee, was not to be. Besotted with the younger man, she courted him to no avail.
She would dance to La Vie En Rose in front of him. Conjure sleight- of-hand roses from behind the counter. Hide roses in the toilet because she knew the restroom needed to remain scented.
Especially after he used it.
The rejection was, for an esteemed lady of the era, shameful beyond compare.
She ran out of the shop, face drenched in tears.
She never delivered her final bouquet.
But her love, like the rose’s ever-fresh petals, was doomed for eternity. Death had done little to improve her listening skills.
Ah Chwee’s rejection had expired. But Ah Huay’s love hadn’t–
And would never —
Reach its expiration date.
🌹 👻 🌹 👻 🌹 🌹 👻 🌹 👻 🌹
But Ah Chwee wouldn’t date an older Auntie.
No, no, no. His reputation as a Casanova couldn’t afford it.
He gave the already middle-aged Ah Huay her marching orders, along with all the roses she had sent.
But Ah Huay hadn’t given up. Yet.
She manifested before Mei Lin.
“Wu lang eh suka nen boh (Would anyone like an old lady like me?)
She looked like an elderly lady who needed male–
attention.
Still, Ah Huay stood straight before her, refuting any criticism of her age.
The story tugged at Mei Lin’s young heartstrings.
The afterlife apparently lacked matchmaking services. She promptly set up a dating profile for the ghastly Ah Huay on Tinder.
🌹 👻 🌹 👻 🌹 🌹 👻 🌹 👻 🌹
Several weeks passed.
Ah Huay never appeared again.
But the rose would manifest itself.
In the counter drawer. On the store shelves.
And of course, in the restroom Ah Chwee once used.
Tinder must have worked for her. Mei Lin was satisfied.
It was business as usual, but the store felt strangely–
Empty.
Until the day Mei Lin opened the shop to find a rose on the counter.
Together with a wedding invitation.
Ah Huay was to be the protagonist at a wedding.
A ghastly one.
Against the odds, she had found a suitor.
Eternity could spring romantic surprises when it wanted.
Like two roses. In the same toilet.
Inheritances are financially comforting, but can be dubious.
The previous owner of Lin’s florists had left more than just flowers behind.
There was something more annoying. And it wouldn’t take no for an answer.
🌹 👻 🌹 👻 🌹 🌹 👻 🌹 👻 🌹
Fresh blooms and a living that wouldn’t be shaken for some time.
Add working in a perpetually scented environment, and being a florist was easily the world’s most enviable occupation.
Mei Lin had inherited the florist shop when her father passed several months earlier. Flowers were flowers-they provided lunch, in a manner of speaking, every day.
She tended the blooms daily, and the once-struggling shop thrived under her care. Bouquet after bouquet was sold, and the cash register kept ringing. ‘
But one rose refused new owners. People would ignore it, even as its bright red petals gave a soft siren’s call. It was fresher than it had the right to be.
Mei Lin would prune it with the deft hands of experience and put it in a vase, only to find it lying, fresh and preserved, on the counter the next day.
🌹 👻 🌹 👻 🌹 🌹 👻 🌹 👻 🌹
The flower’s persistence was odd.
Very odd.
But Mei Lin brushed it off as the absent-mindedness of a florist trying to water plants and contain protesting blooms in coffin-like wrapping paper.
Then, it began manifesting itself in different places.
The counter’s drawer.
In the cactus pot, with an unwilling cactus as a stem.
In the staff toilet, where it turned up looking strangely–
Fresher.
A loving, yet cryptic note came with each appearance.
Thinking of you.
We should see each other more often.
With love,
_______________.
🌹 👻 🌹 👻 🌹 🌹 👻 🌹 👻 🌹
The rose’s changing location had Mei Lin’s mind shifting as well.
Until she couldn’t make out where it was.
So that she could sell carnations without mistaking them for violets, she decided to do a little research.
Even if it was her grandmother’s shop.
It had once belonged to a lady of Singapore’s pioneer generation, Ah Huay. Her love for one of her customers, Ah Chwee, was not to be. Besotted with the younger man, she courted him to no avail.
She would dance to La Vie En Rose in front of him. Conjure sleight- of-hand roses from behind the counter. Hide roses in the toilet because she knew the restroom needed to remain scented.
Especially after he used it.
The rejection was, for an esteemed lady of the era, shameful beyond compare.
She ran out of the shop, face drenched in tears.
She never delivered her final bouquet.
But her love, like the rose’s ever-fresh petals, was doomed for eternity. Death had done little to improve her listening skills.
Ah Chwee’s rejection had expired. But Ah Huay’s love hadn’t–
And would never —
Reach its expiration date.
🌹 👻 🌹 👻 🌹 🌹 👻 🌹 👻 🌹
But Ah Chwee wouldn’t date an older Auntie.
No, no, no. His reputation as a Casanova couldn’t afford it.
He gave the already middle-aged Ah Huay her marching orders, along with all the roses she had sent.
But Ah Huay hadn’t given up. Yet.
She manifested before Mei Lin.
“Wu lang eh suka nen boh (Would anyone like an old lady like me?)
She looked like an elderly lady who needed male–
attention.
Still, Ah Huay stood straight before her, refuting any criticism of her age.
The story tugged at Mei Lin’s young heartstrings.
The afterlife apparently lacked matchmaking services. She promptly set up a dating profile for the ghastly Ah Huay on Tinder.
🌹 👻 🌹 👻 🌹 🌹 👻 🌹 👻 🌹
Several weeks passed.
Ah Huay never appeared again.
But the rose would manifest itself.
In the counter drawer. On the store shelves.
And of course, in the restroom Ah Chwee once used.
Tinder must have worked for her. Mei Lin was satisfied.
It was business as usual, but the store felt strangely–
Empty.
Until the day Mei Lin opened the shop to find a rose on the counter.
Together with a wedding invitation.
Ah Huay was to be the protagonist at a wedding.
A ghastly one.
Against the odds, she had found a suitor.
Eternity could spring romantic surprises when it wanted.
Like two roses. In the same toilet.
Mirrors of the Mind by Michelle Liew is a collection of psychological and supernatural short stories that explore the quiet unease beneath ordinary moments. These are not tales of spectacle, but of subtle fracture — where memory distorts, silence speaks, and the self is not always singular. In these stories, what is unseen often carries the greatest weight, and what lingers is not what is shown, but what is felt.
