A Peculiar String of Bizarre Dreams

Chapter 2: Sunflowers and Irises

I have the day ahead planned out.

I like being prepared. But when the opportunity strikes, I can also be spontaneous. Depends on the occasion, really. Also depends on how I'm feeling. I ask myself: do I feel like participating in said occasion? If the answer is yes — BAM, I'm so spontaneous, I'm a nuclear reaction gone loco.

I pull on a worn pair of denim jeans, a maroon tee, my beat up sneakers and head downstairs.

"Daaaad!" I call out.

I hear nothing back. It's eerily quiet. He's probably out for his morning run, I think. I grab a floral scarf hanging on a stand nearby, and wrap it around my neck before heading out our mahogany front door.

It's a wonderful summer day outside, not too hot and ideal for a nice picnic.

All my life, I have lived in the same town, Avian Oaks. And that is exactly what it is: it has lots of oak trees and lots of birds, mostly the tiny fluffy kinds. It's a shame that I never learned their names. As I hear them chirp around me, I wonder about the bird species that inhabit my town. Sparrows? Hummingbirds? Who knows.

When you live in a place for too long, you get too comfortable. It desensitizes you in a way, from learning about your city, or in my case, from learning about the animals that share the same geography as me.

The morning birds, up somewhere in the trees and the sky, chirp a little louder to show their agreement for my wonderments.

"Watch your step, Jemma! These weeds have a habit of growing exactly where you never thought they'd be growin', if you know what I mean."

Across our house's porch, I see Daylily Juniper, covered knee-deep in mud and stray plant-bits sticking out from her otherwise perfect fading-blonde hair.

The Junipers have been our neighbours for as long as I can remember. The old couple loves their garden and loves gardening even more. They have a random assortment of ornaments decorating their garden, including suspicious looking gnomes.

They grow a variety of plants in their garden. And of course: I have the same problem with plants that I have with birds. I never bother to learn what type of plants grow around me. Some of them even bloom into beautiful flowers in the spring time.

I can however, tell that the Junipers grow sunflowers and irises, I can see them now from where I am standing. At some point during kindergarten perhaps, I learned what sunflowers and irises looked like. Soon, I also learned that these flowers have a subtle fragrance — not overwhelmingly sweet or irritatingly itchy to the nose.

"Don't worry, Daylily! Those weeds aren't clever enough for me. It's those gnomes that I worry about. I'm pretty sure someday I'll come out and there'll be that blue-hatted, small-bearded gnome with his red cummerbund in hand. Ready to choke me, the first chance he gets!"

Daylily chuckles as she waves off my false paranoia. "You've got quite an imagination there, Jemma. No wonder Oxford couldn't resist you. Don't let Adam hear you saying that. He loves those gnomes like crazy, they've been in his family for two generations I think. People in the old days were so curious, don't you think?"

I mull over the thought and find myself nodding along. Daylily is probably over fifty years old, I estimate in my head. This meant her husband's parents were alive sometime around the early 1900's.

People in the old days were curious indeed, but that stands true for people even today. We human beings, everywhere, of every age and era — we're curious through and through.

But then again, I'm biased when it comes to Adam Juniper. Daylily's other half used to be a jazz musician.

Sometimes, he sits on his porch in the cold winter days, playing sombre melodies on his shiny saxophone to a snow-covered garden. And if you ask him what he's doing, he says, "My plants are hibernating, you see. I am here nurturing them for a little while, as they eagerly wait for spring — to bloom in harmony and dance anew along the rhythm of every bird song that'll be sung in celebration."

I snap back from my daydreaming and realize Daylily is still looking at me, waiting for me to say something.

"I definitely agree with you, Daylily. Good luck with those weeds!"

Daylily waves at me again, sending the dirt on her palms hither and thither. I adore my garden-obsessed neighbours, I think to myself, and grin back at her.

As I walk away from my neighbours' house, I notice a gnome with a pointy yellow hat and an evil smile squinting at me. I can imagine it saying, "You weren't kidding, you know. Watch your step. I will choke you with my non-existent cummerbund. Yes, I know, I don't wear a cummerbund, but Stevie the red-cummerbund gnome over there, does. Together, we will choke you with our cummerbund powers combined."

I shudder as I look away from the gnome. There are times when I wish I could talk to inanimate objects; but if they were going to be as evil as Stevie and his gnome friend, then I wasn't sure I wanted that kind of ability.