Aurora 2024

Sara Allard

might be over. They’ll tell their little girlfriends, who will ditch their drive thru shifts to see it, tossin’ it headfirst into the Pine Haven grapevine. One of them takes a picture or makes one of those internet videos that Layla swears are funny, and things will have truly gone to pot. Those black news vans will come up from the coast. They’ll clog up the good parkin’ spots and shove their microphones up my nose. They’ll beg me to give that flower to the scientists, who always seem to show up whether I say so or not. They’ll don their white coats, pour into that field like a spilled ant farm, toss up a dozen tents, and shove all kinds of needles into that sweet little dandelion. The white coats will change her name to something stupid like”Taraxacum officinale;” her purpose to fix the problem they let happen in the first place. They’ll take the credit for this divine miracle and where will I be? Trapped in my glorified shed while my precious dandelions are thrown to the dogs. But I ain’t lettin’ it happen. It’s just one little dandelion after all, nothin’ a spade and an old flowerpot won’t fix! Just a quick little transplant and it’ll be like none of this ever happened, you’ll see. No news anchors, no scientists, no boho freakshows who will twist it into a flower crown. I’ll just get back to doin’ the real work! It takes hours for my rusty wrists hours to gather up the best soil from the nursery, and even longer to find a decent flowerpot from my best-garden-in-Pine Haven days. All I could hustle up was a Frog Prince

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