The Daisies were up to something.
Recently a larger deployment of their guard had been posted around Parliament Garden.
‘Autumn is never kind to us’ one of the Petunias standing watch coughed wearily. His petals were beginning to wilt from a more than a month spent on the nightwatch.
‘No season is.’ replied a fellow Petunia striking a match and attempted to light his paperbark cigar. ‘The bees are still active far too late into the year for my liking. This should be a time of fortification, not defending air skirmishes. Damn-it!’ The Petunia grumbled as his cigar failed to light. Flicking it into the grass he continued as he grabbed for another, ‘And then there’s stories of Pleasant Meadow being destroyed by a lawn mower’.
‘That’s only rumor. They’re prob-‘
‘I know my information private! Ten days! Ten days with no contact. You think that the Daffodils just all decided to go quiet!? No, I know them better than that. Proud flowers, reliable, they used to send notice even if three tenths of a spit-a’ rain was heading towards Greenland. No something is bad, I can it feel in my stem’.
‘The Pansies have said it could just be an early winter’.
‘The Pansies are lying cowards! Their information isn’t worth the pollen that falls out of their pristil. Anything that helps Pansies is all that they’re concerned with. I lost three petals because of an order from one of those bastards and what? I get posted to another front guard and he gets a medal’. The two flowers fell silent, they were both too tired to argue, nerves too frayed to hold a grudge.
Without warning a gust of breeze exploded into action, flooring the flowers and sending a raid siren blaring across the field. The din of yelling and gunfire followed.
:——————————————————————————–:
Veiled under the quiet of nightfall a single seaside Daisy scampered into the scrubland near the town perimeter. Holding a bundled message close to his stem, the daisy ran with determined purpose. Leaping over some bindis that lay hidden within the grass like pikes awaiting the unwary.
With the corners of the Daisy’s sightline beginning to blur he only now realised how close he was getting to exhaustion.
A noise.
Overhead a silent titan moved with alarming speed, a single beat of its wings created a gale that knocked the daisy to the floor and tore the letter from his grasp. The monolithic form of an owl crashed to the ground with an inconceivable strength that drew a frightened yelp from a field mouse, the owl’s talon pressing the rodent to the earth had failed to land a killing blow.
Spreading its mighty wings the owl pushed itself again into the air while clutching its prey. The mouse scrabbled within an unbreakable grasp and roared with fading terror as distance consumed its cries.
Checking to see if he accidentally pollinated himself, the daisy stood and searched for the lost letter, his petals shaking with both fear and adrenaline. An owl, a real owl, almost crushed him without a second thought. Finding the crumpled letter and bruised from the fall the Daisy began limping into town.
:——————————————————————————–:
‘Then we let them die like weeds’, the Pansy spoke with a coldness holding depth. Standing, he calmly walked to the window overlooking Parliament Garden and paused, letting the silence linger. ‘It’s very simple, the equilibrium of the flower bed must be adhered too. If the Daffodils die, then they die. We all share the same sun my comrade.’ the vitriolic spit of the Pansy’s last word drew venom into the air.
Fear rooting him to his seat the Cowslip quivered a reply ‘But….it’s only our inaction at fault. They need-’
‘They need to help themselves you fool!’ Spinning around the Pansy hurled an ashtray at the cowslip, narrowly missing him and shattering into the wall. ‘My heart does not pollinate for the Daffodils! A flower who can’t stand on their own roots should wither and die, they will wither and die Cowslip! You think this is merciless, you think I engineered their downfall’, looming over the Cowslip the Pansy lowered its voice to a whisper. ‘I am the poison of this flower bed, know that. In time you will all be outgrown by the Pansies. No weed nor drought shall stop us, and not even the green thumb of god shall strike us down!’ Gripping one of the Cowslip’s petals the Pansy ripped it from its stem and threw it to the ground, storming out of the room.
Stopping at the door the Pansy regained its composure. ‘Remember Mr Cowslip your continued support of the United Garden is much obliged, we share the same sun Comrade…’
J.McCray
2020
Sunday Short Stories 