The Have-Not Flower
An excerpt from the journal of Hekate BhoChreádh, of the Satyr clan, a former carnie of Buffalo Joe’s Circus Show, arrested by the Vampirial military state, serving as a gladiator in The Carver’s Game in the heart of the Vampirial City of Blight. Written long before she was captured. Estranged grandmother to the twins Tavish & Brianne BhoChreádh, two heroes of Timraíll.
My Son by choice, though not by blood,
Have you seen the flowers lately?
They are called the Have-Nots,
Or, if you are fortunate enough to see a field of them, they are known as Those-That-Survive.
Six, tiny, white, grey tipped petals. Ashy green and razor-edged leaves on a writhing, narrow stem. Scaled with brittle thorns that embed themselves in unprotected fingertips. It’s roots and thorns lined with seeds desperately clinging, so that through dusty wind or drop of blood they may spread.
It’s diverse and less resilient ancestors once littered the verdant fields now called the Badlands.
It is named thus because it does not have nutrient soil, clean air or water, yet it perseveres in spite, in determination, in defiance.
It’s travelled alone, the only flora in our chemical laden desert, roots wrap in tumble weeds, spreading into the cracked and dried earth and asphalt of the factory and mining towns that scatter our landscape, anywhere where water may be found, albeit precious little and often fetid.
They seldom live longer than a day or two. Trampled by neglectful laborers, deliberately uprooted by the Vampirial regime. Yet even Vampirial poisons the roots do not destroy. They will find their way to the surface, to sunlight, to tumble and spread the seeds that line their roots one more. Always leaving the soil better, the air and water cleaner, than it had been before they took root. Even if it’s only for a short time, as there are seldom enough of them to counter the spewings of the Vampirial war machine.
Though, the few surviving elders of us, and those who have chosen to walk the path Josiah’s multicolored tents have made, know better than to step on the Have-Not, to pick Those-Which-Survive with gloved paw, hoof, or talon. We choose to hide our cordial invitations in the heart of its tumbling roots, a drop of blood is a small price to pay for the spreading of the strongest of us.
The Have-Not is a symbol, for those of us who know. They wait for us in the leaky outskirts of hydroponic ration centers, the crevices of factory walls, the cracked concrete that surrounds the projectors on which the filthy, shining work of Nitrodemix Carver is seen.
It is hope it is defiance, and it’s roots carry Josiah’s message, our message, to the true Have Nots, those which neither petals or thorns
We are still here.
