Thank you for this review, it’s pretty helpful. Just a quick note though, I would seriously recommend that you actually finish the story. Some of these phrases you’re struggling with make a little more sense once you realize that our narrator isn’t exactly, like, sane. Then again, neither is Sunflower; she’s a free-spirited wanderer who plants her favorite flower wherever she goes. Doesn’t mean she loves ALL flowers, just sunflowers. The symbolism is a little more clear once you understand the contrast between the narrator’s “darkness” (for example, he grows moonflowers instead of sunflowers) and Sunflower’s “vivacity,” her glowing bright essence and respect for living things.
Short Story / Flower in the Sun
Nobody knew where the girl came from or how long she had been among us. Not a single family in Cooper county could remember much of that raven-haired waif from before the flood that took Mrs. Breaux’s baby boy along the banks of Fen River, yet one glance at Miss Sunflower and you could have sworn you had known her since childhood. Her eyes danced an emerald-tinged tango while everyone else fumbled about in an elbow-pumping hee-haw; it wasn’t that her coy smile and lingering look made you feel self-conscious so much as her quirky grin and glimmering green gaze made you feel like you were penetrating her, not the other way around.
Hers was a face that couldn’t keep secrets without melting into laughter, heavy and sweet like fresh honey in June, lifted from the lungs of an orphan gypsy that twinkled in the air like a pixie on its way to Neverland. I could spend a whole year trying to describe the sound – her sound – but such effort would only become a stringent reminder that I won’t be able to catch it drifting through the usual drunken prattle that spills from Nick’s Barn in the dead hours of the morning, not anymore. It’s a sound that lives on only in my imagination.
Did I love her? I never really knew her. To be honest, nobody did; she entered our quiet rustic ritual of homespun handcrafts and cropped corn without so much as bending a blade of grass, but her departure ripped open a communal scar so deep that to this day I have a hard time believing in a forgive-and-forget kind of world. All I have to do is look out my front door to be reminded of her smile, scowling at those bright budding circles of life that began to sprout next to the buttercup petals in my garden. Most people look at a sunflower and feel comforted by its merry yellow invitation, but I know better.
She had been renting out the spare bedroom at the Breaux estate for maybe a week (hell, maybe a month) before I got the chance to meet her. More like before she took the opportunity to meet me, anyway; just another day in the garden, nothing spectacular, and there she was hovering over my shoulder, throwing off a slender shadow that crawled across the soft blue silk snowballs of my hydrangea patch. The unexpected arrival almost drove the spokes of my trusty spading fork through the back of my hand as her bare feet shuffled into view. Painted in painstaking detail on each offending toe was the symbol of her vivacity: a sunflower. Those minute yellow petals pinwheeled over and over again within my pupils.
It wasn’t until she spoke that the trance was broken.
“They look like wedding bells,” she said. I tried to articulate a response but she saved me the trouble by pointing to a sheaf of hanging foxglove blooms crawling up my porch lattice. “Absolutely gorgeous, although a little too pink for my taste.”
Working enough moisture into the roof of my mouth to ask how anything so beautiful could be considered anything less than perfect, I offered up a jaunty grin, but the blatant attempt at flirtation must have rang just as hollow to her as it felt to me. Still, her cheeks dimpled at the flattery.
“I brought you a present,” she beamed, swishing the eclectic collection of skirts that hugged her waist by the barest of threads. “I’m somewhat of a closet horticulturalist myself, if you couldn’t guess. More of an obsession really. That’s why they call me Sunflower.”
I told her it was a pretty name. I also told her “they” must have been stoned out of their gourds through most of the last decade, contemplating deep over the riveting lives of crickets.
“Hey now,” she said a touch indignantly, “what do you have against sunflowers? I noticed you don’t have a single seedling anywhere in this botanical fortress of yours, not one! Good thing I came by then, is it not?” She proceeded to pull a packet of Double Sun Golds from God knows where, gracefully tossing it aside as if she fully intended to misplace them somewhere in the soft peat and sandy soil of my humble garden. She put a hand against her mouth to suppress a little giggle; if I could have bottled that sound and sold it at a nickel a gallon, ladies and gentlemen, I could have been a millionaire.
Wiping the grit of the day onto the front of my garden-alls (a snazzy pair of suspender-strap coveralls my neighbor’s wife Mrs. Nettle knit for me over the winter), I scooped up the seed packet and thanked Sunflower for her suggestion. I had no intention of actually planting them, muddling up my oleanders with a bunch of generic hippie flowers, but I smiled and nodded and watched as the strange woman swished her way back down my drive and up the dirt road. I waited until she disappeared over the top of the hill that runs parallel to my estate, chucked the packet into a wastebasket next to the hammock on my porch, and promptly forgot about them.
Please don’t misunderstand my intentions (or lack thereof) as it concerns those seemingly innocent seeds. It’s just that I’m very, very particular about the thirty square feet of dirt that sits in front of my porch, not to mention the acre of carefully crafted ornamental hedging that sits on the back end of my property. I’ve been listed as one of the top five red oleander breeders in Better Homes and Gardens three years running. I’m close to perfecting my own strain of blue oleanders -- strictly a side project mind you -- and I didn’t get that all-important genetic recipe by allowing my beautiful brainchild to cross-pollinate with any old average dandelion. Besides, I grow moonflowers in the house garden, not sunflowers. The way they compliment the scattered white oleander around my water pump gives the impression that “magic flows under the soil, and when that quaint little well pumps water it produces little white miracles,” or so says The American Gardener.
A week went by without further word from Miss Sunflower. For all I knew she could have packed her bags and moseyed on to the next township, probably toward Baxton or over the state line into Valley Hope, just another New Age Johnny Appleseed trying to spread peace, love and flower-power voodoo. It wasn’t until the morning I found a new gift nestled against my water pump that I knew Miss Sunflower was still very much at large in Cooper county.
Sitting at the pump was another packet of sunflower seeds. Sitting next to it was a small tin watering can, her rosy red lipstick adorning its side in a sensual kind of autograph.
She was nothing if not tenacious; I had to give her that much. I decided to keep the watering can, but the seedlings joined their brothers and sisters in my wastebasket.
“She’s got, I dunno, some sort of power over men,” my friend Jesse Watts tried to explain to me later that evening as he inhaled his fourth mug of amber ale. Nick’s Barn was doing good business that night; an entire row of exhausted farmers nodded in appreciation at Jesse’s observation. “I mean shit, she got half the lawns from here to Texas lined with those damned flowers,” he continued, paused for a moment, then added, “I think she’s a witch.”
“If she’s a witch then I’ll be the broom between her legs!” bawled old Tim Baker, pulling a raucous response from the peanut gallery. For my part I tried to remain pleasantly neutral, offering up a toast or two in all the right places, just enjoying an evening out with the boys.
Then she walked in.
Had Nick owned a jukebox (and he used to, but a belligerent Barry McPherson put his boot through the speaker the night he meant to put his boot through Jack Hollinger’s head), the music would have dropped out as if the sound had been pushed off a cliff to crash against the Rocks of Awkward. As it were, two dozen inebriated cattle jockeys turned to appraise the newcomer with hungry eyes, eager to view this new feminine thing in an atmosphere of pure testosterone. The silence lasted only a moment; before Sunflower put two feet between herself and the door the patrons had turned back to the blinking neon Budweiser sign behind the bar, watching their favorite phosphorescent cowgirl kick her leg back and forth like a chorus dancer caught in a perpetual can-can.
Always the proper host, Nick washed out a wet mug with the rag on his belt as he said, “Can I get you anything, miss? We got one helluva selection if you’re into good ‘ol fashioned hops and barley-pop. Best damn wheat beer in the state, yessir.”
“And the worst whiskey this side of the Atlantic,” Jesse mumbled into his ale with a grin. “My pigs could piss a better cocktail, yessir.”
Nick shot him a sour face as he went about his bartending duties, pouring Miss Sunflower a cold glass of his own brew as she took a seat next to Jesse and myself. A hint of jasmine hit my nostrils as soon as she came close, cutting through the usual nicotine fog like a fragrant searchlight, finding itself somehow right at home with the musk and grit that surrounded the rest of us. She took Nick’s brew gratefully, tipping him with a red rose she had braided into the dark oasis of hair that now spilled across her shoulders, turning his collection jar into an impromptu flower vase watered with quarters.
“Keep the change,” she said, giving Nick a playful wink before taking down half her mug at a single draught. I had to shut my gaping mouth as she turned on Jess and me, managing to appear dainty even as she wiped a sudsy smear from her chin. “So boys, love any good livestock lately?”
Jesse almost choked. Lord knows why because he uses the same greeting at least twice a week, but for some reason it struck him as particularly funny coming from her.
I snatched the opening, thanking her for the nice watering can I found at my pump. Her brow furrowed slightly as the corner of her mouth tweaked in amusement. For a second I thought she could see it all through my corneas, that she knew both her other gifts had found sanctuary at the bottom of my wastebasket, but the look was replaced by a more congenial cast in her eyes so quickly I had to catch the apology that was already running up my throat.
“Does this mean you’ll plant the flowers?” she asked. “I mean honestly, a garden likes yours without a sunflower… you might as well build a skyscraper without any windows. At least the lobby gets a little sun when you open the doors every now and again.”
Jesse’s eyebrows perked. “She gave you a watering can? That’s all it took to get you to pull your anal-retentive green thumb out of your ass and plant a real flower?” He finished his beer and nudged his mug aside with an expectant cock of the head in my direction.
I was trapped. When the first word out of my mouth was “sorry,” they both adopted that tell-me-you-didn’t look; what was there to tell them, other than I didn’t? Sunflower began to pout as I started to explain the finer art of oleander breeding, a subject in which neither of them found much interest. It’s a delicate balance, and the dry spell we’d been experiencing made my new blue oleanders come up looking like organic purple welts strangled by the humidity. I told them I was very close to finding that perfect blend of cross-pollinated nutrients and soil to bring my blue beauties to life, but by then they had already checked out of the conversation. Some people will never understand.
“Well,” Sunflower declared, “I guess I’ll just have to mislabel my seeds, won’t I?”
I told her I would notice.
“Even if they looked just like oleanders?”
I would still notice.
“Even if I planted them myself while you weren’t looking?”
I would definitely fucking notice.
“Hey, hey, hey” Jesse blurted. “No need to get defensive. The lady just loves her flowers, yeah?”
Once again I found myself apologizing, trying to dissolve the new layer of cow-eyed shock on her face with a few kind words. I invited her to stop by anytime as I would be more than happy to show her the ropes of professional gardening, maybe even introduce her to a new kind of leafy obsession or two. I cursed myself for snapping at her.
I knew right then and there I wanted this woman.
We finished our drinks, said our farewells, and parted ways for the evening.
Two weeks passed. Not once did Miss Sunflower stop by my garden, to chat or to plant. I might have caught a glimpse of those billowy kaleidoscopic skirts slipping into the darkness of Bryan Thorntree’s hayloft with his son Jeremy toeing a close second, but I’ll never be certain it was her. If young Jeremy left the hayloft a man that day it would have been impossible to decipher who had truly deflowered whom.
No matter how I tried, the woman wouldn’t leave the cozy corner she had made for herself inside my imagination. How could a man not think about those delicate ankles, swathed in multicolored silks and swishy saffron skirts? Sparkling green diamond eyes be damned, she was all I thought about.
Maybe Jesse was right. Perhaps she was a witch. She certainly had me under her spell, no doubt about it.
Maybe that’s why I didn’t notice the sunflowers at first. They didn’t start in my porch garden; oh no, that would have been too obvious. They must have been growing for a week or more, spreading unchecked like a yellow pedaled virus, snaking up the lanes of my ornamental hedge garden and suffocating the beauty of my organic maze. They were Sunflower’s sunflowers, all right.
She had been planting them all along. I know this for a fact because I caught her yellow-handed.
It was midnight in the garden when I discovered her; the shadows were crawling and groping like wispy fingers, shrouding Sunflower in their dark mystery. She didn’t see me coming; I was very quiet, for I had been waiting for her inevitable arrival all evening.
My own fingers reached out to touch her shoulder … yet I hesitated. Bent between two rows of hedging over a hand-dug hole, Sunflower was humming some serene lullaby to herself, carefully spreading the seeds she pulled from a purple cloth sack that hung from the rope around her waist. She still did not notice me, not now, even as I stood an arm’s breadth from startling her into confession. She had nothing to confess to me; I would forgive her anything.
She didn’t gasp as I imagined she would, not even as my hands gripped her throat and closed tight enough to measure the pulsing of her quickening heart. I allowed her enough leverage to turn around, leveling those gorgeous green gaslights she used for eyes on mine, wide and terrified.
I squeezed tighter.
Still, she screamed not. We fell in a heap, my body atop hers, she as defenseless as the blades of grass beneath our combined weight. Her knees began beating a steady rhythm against my sides at first, then frantic, trying to twist out of my vice-like love. Her mouth moved in syllables but there was no sound save the occasional gurgle, a plea cut short on account of her closing trachea. Those green emeralds bulged, frightened, confused, determined not to blink. Her hands made fists but she could not swing them.
I squeezed tighter.
Her legs beat less. Her fists loosened. Her face began turning a subtle shade of blue.
I squeezed tighter.
The subtle shade darkened, blossoming across her silent face; the antithesis of her effervescent namesake. The thought struck me then in a peal of thunderous insight, nearly forcing me to release her tender throat. I was absolutely awestruck. Her complexion ceased its pale decline; it stopped, just as she did, in a deep, true blue.
It was the perfect color for my oleanders.
I tried to share this revelation with my pretty guest, but Miss Sunflower’s once-bright eyes had rolled into the back of her bonnet-capped skull. Her arms hung at her sides, useless as they were lifeless. Perfection comes at such a high price.
Sunflower was soon where she had always wanted to be; every day I spend in my garden is another day by her side, watering what remains of her sweet smile as I let my foxglove wedding bells drink from the water can with the rosy red lips. She fertilized better than I dared to imagine.
My blue oleanders never grew, though. Such a pity. Perhaps the questionable quality of her sunbathed skin had too much wear and tear to supply my blue beauties with the nutrients they needed. A topical cream might have helped, but one can’t be too picky.
Besides, Mrs. Breaux’s baby boy made a much better mulch.
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CiannaSkye reviewed Version 1 -
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rollingbolus reviewed Version 1 -
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of Fen River, yet one --- of Fen River. Yet one
you were penetrating her --- it could just be my dirty mind, but this sounds a wee bit sexual, could be better/cleaner as ‘looking right into her’
shot him a sour face --- shot him a sour look
yellow pedaled --- yellow-petaled
I reckon you have the heart of a good story here, but I’m not sure if you’ve carried it off entirely. The voice swings between literary and modern; at the beginning I thought this was set in the past, then it seemed it was in the present day. The twist at the end is also confusing, as although the main character has said he knows he wants Miss Sunflower, there’s nothing to subtly prepare the reader for the fact that he wants her for fertilizer. Nothing wrong with surprises, but this is maybe too much of one. I think also that you overcook your metaphors a bit in places, e.g. “that twinkled in the air like a pixie on its way to Neverland”, or “as if the sound had been pushed off a cliff to crash against the Rocks of Awkward”.
You often describe things, sounds, smells, well and this is a good idea. But it needs more development and more consistency in the voice for you to really pull it off.
good luck working on this
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oneshot92 reviewed Version 1 -
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the music would have dropped out as if the sound had been pushed off a cliff to crash against the Rocks of Awkward.- Excellent line. One of the best I have read.
“So boys, love any good livestock lately?” – Love it.
All I can really say here, is wow. This an amazing story. I never once saw the end coming.
Your style and way of telling this crazy tale is exceptional. The characters were so full of life, and seemed to come to life within your words.
That scene in the bar was mesmerizing, as could almost picture myself in the very establishment. All of its patrons could have very well been any man in any of a number of small farming communities. The narrator could easily be anyone’s neighbor. I truly cannot thing of thing to change here, as the piece has me in complete awe. Excellent work.
acwd reviewed Version 1 -
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The twist this story took caught me in the throat, just as Sunflower had been. Very well written, nice imagery and flow.
JustGeneric reviewed Version 1 -
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I must give you all 10’s for this one. Fabulous ending, that was not expected at all. I love twists! Your descriptive words and imagery were fantastic and made the story move along so well. There was never a dull moment. I would definitely like to see this published, and hope to read more of your work soon. Thanks for sharing!
LizzyDarcy reviewed Version 1 -
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Wow. An insane twist. I could have sworn I knew where that was heading, a sort of typical romance. Mutual hate at first, and then, slowly, they would grow to love each other (excuse the pun). Boy, was I wrong. Although, I suppose that’s what a good short story does, it surprises you. Your description of her was wonderful. I could picture her shining green eyes and dark hair with great ease.
The character of Sunflower reminds me of some other character from some other story. That sort of aloof, sneaky, type… I’m not sure where I’ve read that type of character before though.
“the shadows were crawling and groping like wispy fingers” an excellent simile
very good imagery overall.
Lino reviewed Version 1 -
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Oh wow!! Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow! This story had me spellbound from the first word. Loved the setting, loved the language (for someone like me, who isn’t a native English speaker, this kind of bombastic treatment of the language is absolutely breathtaking and wonderful). Loved the build up, and the ending is just such a good punch in the solar plexus. Marvellous! Reminded me a bit of Edgar Allan Poe, or perhaps Ruth Rendell. Chilling and enchanting and impressive. A great read!
I’m going to add this to my favourites!
Betty13 reviewed Version 1 -
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I am going to stop here. I don’t wish to tear your piece apart. I think you have missed a lot of opportunities to add much rich detail and to build up the description of her mysterious presence.
I would like to see a revision. The visuals of flowers and suggestion of nature’s perfumery combined with a mysterious woman called sunflower brings feelings of new life, budding seasons and the warmth of the sun into my cold winter world. Expand, seize every opportunity to capture the essence of rebirth in spring and summer.
Below are some suggestions. I wish you luck on your piece.
“like you were penetrating her,” – ?
“heavy and sweet like fresh honey in June” – Heavy? Like fat?
“lifted from the lungs ” – her face was lifted from the lungs?
“Most people look at a sunflower and feel comforted by its merry yellow invitation, but I know better.” – suggests that those who feel comfort emanating from sunflowers is some how tricked by all sunflowers…?a bench
“before I got the chance to meet her.” – was this character vying for the chance before it happened?
“More like before she took the opportunity to meet me, anyway; just another day in the garden, nothing spectacular,” – Perhaps > I was sitting on my knees in my garden on another beautiful afternoon. I was enjoying a spectacular display of fresh summer flower filling the breeze with perfume and there she was hovering over my shoulder, throwing off a slender shadow that crawled across the soft blue silk snowballs of the hydrangea patch. I worked hard to make this place especially inviting and an invitation brought about two bare feet into my peripheral vision startling me enough that spokes from my trusty garden spade nearly pierced my palm.
“jaunty grin, but the blatant attempt at flirtation” – awkward visual
““I brought you a present,” she beamed,” – How about > I would like to offer you something to add to your garden”
” I told her it was a pretty name. I also told her “they” must have been stoned out of their gourds through most of the last decade, contemplating deep over the riveting lives of crickets.” – Huh? Where did this come from?
“from God knows where,” – ? Her ear? Her armpit? Her underwear?
“gracefully tossing it aside”- Expand on this. Sunflowers are either very tall or quite bushy if hey are the smaller ones that cluster. You wouldn’t want to portray her as some one with no regard for the flowers already there by putting her over-sized blooms where the other plants would be overshadowed.
Try > She opened the packet and poured some seeds into her hand. She walked to the back of the garden and behind the tallest flowers she randomly spread the seeds about, poking them into the dirt with her index finger.
Wesley_Carter reviewed Version 1 -
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I really enjoyed this piece, had a surprise ending to say the least. I think give this a little more work, and it will be a great short story. There’s not really anything I can critique you on, but just to keep up the work.
Absynthe reviewed Version 1 -
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I like the way this begins, and your use of description and imagery is quite good.
I have a problem with this phrase: “More like before she took the opportunity to meet me, anyway;” To me, that’s something you are more likely to “hear” and less likely to read. You want to be careful about when phrases like that pop up in your writing, and you want to make sure that when they do it’s completely intentional.
Nice ending, and you wrapped it up well. Overall a good job. I enjoyed it.
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