Sunchild

It is spring, and the trees swish the wind around like hula hoops on their slender waists.

I used to have a hula hoop. 

It broke.

Only the whistling of their hoops generates sound. Everything else is quiet or dust-coated. Sometimes both. My lips are cracked into slits that I repeatedly lick in attempt to mend, thinking of water. But I don't want to go inside yet, so I wait. I look at the ground, pretending little shoots of grass are peeking out like they did so long ago. They are late, many years late.

Somewhere far away, I like to imagine that flowers are blooming. Flowers don't bloom here anymore. It's too dry and arid. We used to have flowers in our yard, carnations and orchids and pansies with petals dripping out of their centers. But they were far before my time. I miss them. 

My throat cries out for a drink again, but it is a feeble whimper against my roaring curiosity.

Because in my hands is a single seed, as real as the ground beneath me.

I hold it lightly, careful not to disturb the peaceful slumber of the plant inside. But I cannot keep my finger from tracing its lines in awe, imagining where it could have came from. It is deep brown and milky cream, with a chocolate candy cane stripe pattern over its shell. A small drop of hope. 

Inside, mother calls. But if I go to her she will ask where I got it and she will not believe me anyway. That is all fine with me; I am used to her askings. But if she were to hold it, she would know it was a sunflower seed, and she would try to find more so she could eat them all. But I won't let her have it. It is my seed, and it is going to grow into a beautiful flower. It will not go down my mother's throat.

Safe, I tell the seed in the whisperings of the wind, trapping the words inside my head so only it can hear, You're going to be safe.

☀︎          ☀︎          ☀︎          ☀︎

Now it is the nearly Dark hour, and I have an asking for my mother.

"Whatbe Yellowbloom?" I ask her in Sandspeak. She is wiping the flats we eat our meals on. They are round and pale white little moons. She can only dust them off with her rag because there is no water to put in our cans. Even our cupped hands are empty. She turns to me and sighs at my asking, tapping her chin as her eyes roll skyward, looking for assistance from the ceiling. 

"Yellowbloom..." she sighs at the memory. She speaks in Sandspeak also. We used to speak another way-- english, I believe it was called-- but I do not know what an english is because it is so old. Our family has been alone in the dehydrated world for so long that our words grew shorter and shorter, until it was another way of speaking entirely. I learn words from the old wordbox I found in our room with lots of pages, but my mother still does not know anything besides Sandspeak. Besides, our throats are too raspy for sentences anyway.

She says it was yellow and bright with a black center, but as the words pour warmly and passionately from her mouth like honey, I hear the flower's eye tearing gold, its sturdy, thick stem kissing a brown-ness I have only seen in stories. I am curious now; we never had sunflowers in our garden. Outside wind blows dust around in circles, then pursues it, like a dog chasing its tail. Mother questions my asking. I tell her it was just a wondering. She nods, sweat making her shine in the remaining light. She is a goddess in its glare. The light does not grant me this image; my sweat is a bleeding of the soul, sapping away my will. 

I quickly excuse myself to my room around the corner. It is merely an extension of the main room, as all the other rooms are. It could be called small, perhaps, but there is nothing for comparison, so it remains the largest place I have seen. Ours is the only house left, the only one resisting the slow general crumbling that has eaten away the homeland (or whatever was here before). Once there I take my private item off the edge of a glass-lined hole rounded by exposure, which seems an impractical addition to the house (it is beaten senseless by sand). My mother and I share everything, save for our private items, which we agreed to leave alone unless given permission. My only private item is a oval-shaped decoration. My mother told me it resembled some food she used to eat, a shelled oval with yellow and white inside. But mine is much more elegant than food; it is adorned with tiny flowers--roses, I remember--and vines crawl over its surface with splayed leaves reaching outwards. It is very fragile and quivers at the touch.