by Ani King
Flash Fiction
And this is Queen Anne’s lace. Daucus carota, I think. Your mom had a horse named Queen Anne when we were kids. And these are bull thistle. I used to confuse them with nettle, because they sting when you squeeze them in your hand and nettle sounded like a sharper plant. And this is where your grandpa said a rattlesnake almost got him. There’s only one kind of rattlesnake in Michigan, the eastern massasauga. I’ve never seen one, but your mom swears the same snake once spooked Queen Anne and almost threw her. Even if you never see one, you have to be careful out here, there are plenty of other snakes, critters, chiggers, ticks. The flowers and weeds grow thick, you’ll want to take slow steps, wear tall socks. In middle school, well before we realized we liked each other, your mom and I used to tear through here in flip-flops and our feet would get all cut up. I think what your mom is going through right now, the postpartum depression, is maybe like looking out at a field of wildflowers and butterflies and birds but all you can see is the possibility of hidden rattlesnakes.
This is where the fire started. Someone smoking. The whole field burned. We lost the house and everything in it. I was in ninth grade. And this is the crick where grandma had me lie in the water while she ran back in the house to find the car keys and the backyard to let all the chickens out of their pen and the dog had passed the year before but the cats had already fled somewhere safe. And your mom came through the smoke on Queen Anne. So dangerous for her to do that. She showed up in pajama pants and cowboy boots and her hair was down, and when she would ride back then she liked it to be loose so it would snap out behind her like ribbons, she said it made her feel like a horse herself to have her own mane untied, and when she’s having a hard time right now I think about how brave she was, even if it was stupid. She was only fourteen, but she rode us out of there. I was already in love with her, by then, this girl with all the persistence of a wildflower.
This is trillium, Trillium grandiflorum, but I can’t remember the last time I saw any; it grows out in the woods, mostly. It makes me think of your mom and when we first met. We didn’t get along. I didn’t like that she picked trillium on the fifth-grade Girl Scout camping trip. I told your mom it was bad to pick them and she did it anyway. And she used to have long hair. The longest I’d ever seen in person and in elementary and middle school; it was always in this tight braid and she would wrap it around her neck like a scarf sometimes. And she stuck a trillium blossom in the end of her braid until the troop leader told her trillium is a protected flower and if you pick the flowers none will grow in their place. And the troop leader told her the same thing I did: it’s illegal to pick protected flowers. And then your mom cried. She cries a lot these days, but don’t worry, eventually she’ll be okay.
This is the land we came from. One day your mom will take you out on Solidago. Solidago is Queen Anne’s granddaughter, and they look alike. Your mom will hold you close and take you through the goldenrod Solidago is named for, and isn’t it beautiful? Your mom knows the true names of all these plants and how they can be used, or what they can do. This over here is rough blazing star, Liatris aspera Michx, it’s her favorite wildflower. So bright. We’ll take a little bit back home with us. And this is milkweed, which is my favorite, though I can never remember all the different types. It reminds me of your mom. When milkweed seed pods split open, a bit of long hair floats out behind each seed while it rides the wind, and it looks like the wind is a galloping horse.
Ani King (they/them) is a queer, gender noncompliant writer, artist, and activist from Michigan. Ani is the first-place winner of the 2024 Blue Frog annual flash fiction contest and a SmokeLong Grand Micro Competition 2023 finalist, and has had work featured in Split Lip Magazine. They can be found at aniking.net or trying to find somewhere to quietly finish a book without interruptions.