I count the petals on the flower. Sitting on my favorite boulder by the lake, I watch clumps of cotton ball clouds drifting across the sky. Birds chatter in the distance, though occasionally one swoops close by. I like the sound of the wind swishing the tall grass surrounding me. It’s comforting. I don’t know why.

The flower is bright yellow with a brown seed pod in the center. It’s stem is rough, almost like sandpaper. Not unpleasant, but noticeable just the same. I count the petals again to make sure I counted right. There are nine. This surprises me for some reason. But it is what it is. I wonder if all flowers have odd numbered petals. As I recall now, most I’ve seen do.

On days like this, I’m prone to reminisce. It’s fall now. The cooler air, much drier than usual, spawns this contemplative nostalgia now seeping from my heart. I recall now, seeing some young girl on a TV show, pulling the petals from a similar flower, saying, “he loves me, he loves me not.” I’ve never seen a boy do that. She pulled every petal off the flower, ending with a smile as apparently he loves her. 

Poor flower. All she had to do was count the petals like I did. Poor boy too. Anyone using a flower for divination instead of just asking him outright, instead of just watching to see how he treated her, instead of trusting her own feelings, well, let’s just say I wouldn’t want to be that boy. 

But they are early teens, like me. So maybe I would do the same thing. But I think I’d rather just look at the flower, the way it’s made. It’s so bright in the sunshine. The petals feel soft, almost like silk. I guess love is also supposed to be soft. It is in the fairy tale version. Maybe that’s the point – to have the fairy tale to dream about when real life doesn’t work out. 

By Ella/Zephyr System
Zephyr’s Cosmos