My daughter traveled
back from the future to save a dandelion. She dug it out gently and
transplanted it in a jar of dirt. She tried to explain to me xeriscaping,
biospheres. I was happy that she loved something so much, even if I didn’t
understand it myself.
“The virus makes the
petals bioluminescent,” she told me. “It’ll blow you away. But it’ll destroy
the species.”
“Who would’ve thought,”
I said. “What’s your life like? Who’s your father?”
“Not important. When the
dandelions glow, can you take a lot of pictures for me?”
She wanted to meet her
grandmother, too. She made the request carefully, but even that was enough for
me to guess what she was trying to avoid telling me. Mom was already forty when
she had me. I tried not to do the math.
Mom asked if it was
possible to stop the virus in the first place. No, Daughter said, we still
don’t know where it actually came from. Dandelions used to get everywhere, you
know. By the way, how’d the coronavirus go? How’d you survive, being
immunocompromised and all?
I told her it was luck,
mostly. Our roots were set in a good place. Caring, considerate. People
protected me without ever meeting me. I didn’t tell her that I thought I
wouldn’t last three weeks. I didn’t tell her that the pandemic was the first
time I felt like the perpetual foreigner the academic papers talk about. The
rest of the country tried to forget what they’d done; I couldn’t.
The portal came and went
again, a glittering green glow. Mom pulled me aside and whispered that I should
go back to school. Get my phD. Worry about a family later. “You’ve got all the
time in the world.” Then, as though the thought came suddenly: “We should stock
up on dandelion tea.”
Bio:
A.S. Kresnak (xe/xir) went to grad school to study health communication. Xir website is askresnak.carrd.co.
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