4. Blue

She walked and walked until she saw the roses in the distance. And then she started running!

She ran and ran until she was there. Finally, the roses were hers! She reached out to pick one.

A sharp pain in her fingers, and she gasped and cried out.

She examined her fingers, then looked back at the rosebush. Thorns protruded from the stems of these flowers. She had seen those before in the magazines, but had not realized they were dangerous.

But she had not thought to bring any tools with her, and so she had no choice but to try to pull the roses off with her bare hands.

She left the garden the same way she came, over the fence, but with as many roses she could fit into her small bag, before driving home.

Sheila developed pustules and ulcers on her fingers. Her parents worried about her and sent her to the doctor. But she refused to tell the doctor how she had gotten those lesions for fear of getting in trouble.

The doctor took a biopsy and did a culture to try to diagnose Sheila's condition. A KOH mount showed cigar-shaped budding yeasts, and a micrograph stained with lactophenol cotton blue showed Sporothrix schenckii conidia.