Piss-flowers
My mother’s favorite flowers are daisies. The physical traits of which are a bunch of white around yellow.
The flowers that grow along the pavement, peeking out from drains and from behind electric boxes fit these requirements. They are not, in fact, daisies, but younger me, completely oblivious to nitty gritty details of botany, did not, in fact, know this. Older me, who is still completely oblivious to the nitty gritty details of botany, does not, in fact, know what they are called.
As the restless hands of a child tend to do on evening strolls, I found myself picking these “daisies” for my mother- happy at the convenience of her favorite flowers being so freely available. Once I’ve collected these flowers, 3 things are guaranteed to happen.
- My mother will tell me not to touch them, because stray dogs have probably peed on them
- She will give in to my antics, and tactfully pop their heads off their stems. If the head falls to the left, it is a boy, if it falls to the right, it is a girl. Or maybe it was the other way around.
- I will never remember which side is which
Once she was done executing little boys and girls, we’d walk along the lane until I collected my next bouquet for her to pop, and so on and so forth, till it was finally time to go home.
Older me has found myself becoming more and more like my mother. When I see those daisies growing in places they shouldn’t be growing in, my initial thought is how they’re covered in pee, but then, just as my mother was, I am appealed to by my inner child. So, to the stares of young school girls on the lane returning home with their mothers; wondering why someone would stop to pick up the piss-flowers, I do just that.
I arrive home with my bouquet, now wilting and flimsy due to my careless grip, and search for a bottle tall enough to act as a brace. My mother walks in:
“Remember these?”
“Imagine how many dogs have peed on them. We used to play that game.”
“Which side was for girls?”
