‘I intend to make these lowly sprouts see the error of their ways through the medium of superior firepower,’ Langley the daffodil storde forward with purpose and obstinately barked at the gathered council.
Tensions had been high since the attempted coup and the ever dogged garden media had since been sent aflutter with talk of a rebel uprisings and rumours of weeds dwelling amongst the flowerbed.
‘The night of thorns, isn’t that cute?’ Langley continued, marching along the assembled cabinet and staring into the downcast faces of his fellow flowers, ‘They mean to divide us by making us afraid, they mean to poison this garden and leave us jumping at our own shadows, this so called night of thorns, this undermining of everything that we have grown…it makes me wilt to consider that we would cede even a modicum of sunlight to these common weeds…these cowslips!’ Slamming a sproutling down onto the cabinet table, Langley spat out a lump of pollen in rage and basked in the frightened silence before him. These flowers were cowards, he thought, all pansies in spite of their colour, no flower in this garden bed was fit to grow alongside the grace of the daffodils.
‘Tall poppies must be cut,’ he said quietly, breaking the spell of his silence and resuming a pacing clip, ‘the begonias are insolent even in their pride-addled boasts of good faith. Where were they ten days ago when we stepped down the rising sproutlings? Where were they last year in the heat of summer? We lost dozens of good flowers that day and the begonias didn’t even so much as drop a petal; I see them as much an ally as I do a blade of grass.’
A low din of shuffling paper fluttered across the room as if a sudden wind had sparing into life, twisting nervous energy into action and carrying the weight of thoughts unsaid. The council was nervous, it seemed as if a lawn mower was waiting at their gates and only the old guard was arrogant enough to ignore it. A cold change was coming and this winter looked to be a cruel one.
‘But what if the rumors are true and the roses have been reseeded?’ spoke a buttercup named Raylith. Overawed by fear of his superior, the young flower was still young enough to believe that fairness would come to those who seek it.
‘Roses! What fairy tales have you been reading flower!?’ Langly marched lockstep across the room in serpentine singularity. Looming over the buttercup and posturing as if to strike his fellow board member, he paused for a moment to size up his prey. ‘The roses are extinct, gone in totality, not even their roots remain, and if you imbeciles are going to drop petals at every fable, cutworm or raindrop, you’re all doomed to be cowards.’ breathing sharply he then spoke to the gathered board, ‘This is a matter of civil disobedience, a populace that has forgotten their place in the garden bed; the peonies will surrender wateringcan-hollow in due time and, as I had said before, the polygalas will then fall after them. All these guerilla tactics are merely a sign of desperation.’ Stepping closer to Raylith, Langley stared for a moment into the buttercup’s pistil.
‘Tall poppies must be cut,’ he whispered in a low voice so that only he and Raylith could hear, ‘forget your place again comrade and you’ll soon walk with your fairies and your roses, remember that stories are just fragments of a blinded past.’
Images of fire and brimstone hid behind the dagger of Langley’s words and Raylith could only let himself sink into his chair defeated. He did not have the numbers to make an indent in prying anything from Langley’s control, and most of all he did not have the bravery. His fellow buttercups, flowers of loyal and enduring nature, would die by the word of the Daffodils, they would fight alongside them until inevitably their bodies were used to dam the oncoming tide, this seemed to be their lot and there was to be no escaping it.
‘So what say you?’ Langley returned to addressing the room, his voice suddenly taking a warm tone, the gentle facade of the daffodils: friendly, calm, peaceful, ‘What say you, my brothers? The garden bed is united under our council and we guide it not by half-measures. We’ve built an empire from this earth and its glory reaches not for the sun, but for itself. With us here, we shall outshine even a cloudless day.’
Sitting down at the head of the council table Langley let the board begin to talk tactics and plan for how the war shall be won. They were idiots, every one of them. One by one they would all make mistakes and one by one they would all be replanted; in time the insurgents may even sit in this board’s place and believe that a victory had been won. There is no victory in life, there is no set point wherein the battle has quelled and your house reins forever halcyon. You fight, you fight and struggle against the bastards that may step you down, and then bury them to survive. The daffodils had always survived in this garden.
They have always survived in this garden.
J.McCray
2021
Sunday Short Stories 