A Dream in the Flower Room

She is a gardener at the Botanical Garden, and she talks to the epiphyllum after the garden closes every night. Colleagues laughed at her for being silly, but she only said: "It is gathering strength to bloom, and I encourage it." That summer, the epiphyllum suddenly bloomed all night long, and I had never seen so many flowers before. She fell asleep lying next to the flowers, and dreamed of a young man in white saying, "I have listened to you for three years, and tonight they finally bloom." When she woke up, the petals fell all over her body, and she smiled with tears in her eyes. The next year she transferred her away, and the epiphyllum never bloomed again.