Menolyrical; Final Friday Fiction

After regaling you yesterday with the horror show that is British politics just now, I thought a little Halloween tale was an obvious follow-on...

Truffle and Sunflower 

Truffle Squirreleaf came upon Sunflower Tallstem at the mall. Truffle had been foraging down by the river and found herself following a scent that she couldn't quite define but which was so alluring all the concrete and footfall of the fearsome uprights could not deter her from following her nose.

It led her to the open court outside the main doors of the shopping mall. This is where she found Sunflower.

Sunflower had arrived on that spot as a result of one of the uprights not paying attention to the bouquet they had just bought inside that mall. He had been part of a punch of others of his kind, plus various leaves and, of all things, a thistle. Not your average field thistle, either. One of those cultivated, raised in a seed tray kind, but whose prickles were as sharp as any wild one. One of those very prickles had been placed up against Sunflower's neck, and with every other step from the uprighter, the prickle dug deeper into the flesh of his stem. Then, unnoticed by the upright, Sunflower's head became separated from his Tallstem! 

Flump... he landed on the concrete flags of the forecourt. Feet passed in hurries and scurries all around him, but somehow he managed not to be trodden on. 

The next thing he knew, he was being sniffed. There was huffing and snuffling as the critter checked out every petal. Then came the nibble at his belly button. 

"STOP THAT!" He yelled. 

Truffle's eyes widened, and she jumped back. Unfortunately, her tail landed right under the foot of a passing upright, and they both got a fright. Truffle froze. She couldn't move. The upright had removed his foot and was staring down at her. She stared back. When the upright seemed to be satisfied that he hadn't actually killed her, he went about his business. Truffle relaxed and looked back at the flowerhead on the ground beside her.

"Well," said Sunflower, "what do you have to say for yourself?"

Truffle came close again and hunkered down beside him. "I like how you smell," she said. "I could smell you all the way down by the river."

"Really? I didn't think we helianthuses had much smell."

"Oh, but you do - to me, at least. I suppose I do have a particularly fine-tuned nose for odours..." Truffle let that drift as she let her mind run through some of the adventures she had had following that nose. After a few moments of reverie, something occurred to her. "How come you can speak to me?"

Sunflower took time to respond and did so with another question. "How come you can hear me?"

Truffle stared into his dark centre, where there was the promise of so many delicious seeds - and could feel that he was staring back at her. 

"Something tells me we ought to be enemies," Sunflower mused, "yet I fear you not. I look at your fur and admire its lustre, then look into your eyes and see... endlessness..."

Truffle could feel a tickling in her heart. She had been told some time before, by the Great Squeaker of Truths, that she would meet with another to whom she would be eternally tied and that the union would be unconventional. If she chose to seal that connection, she could never return to her tribe, but she and the chosen one would not know death. "I sense this also, this stretching of time between us. My name is Truffle Squirreleaf - but I have left the woods and chosen to live in the concrete spaces, which makes me a foreigner to all." She stopped to let her new friend tell her his name.

"Sunflower Tallstem - a delight to meet you, Truffle. Sadly, I can no longer lay claim to my name, for the first has become separated from the second! I lie adrift... and I feel a fading as there is no channel now for water or nourishment."

Truffle could not say but knew instinctively that if she picked up Sunflower, they would become bonded forever. That way, she could preserve him, saving him from that lack of water and food. In turn, she would no longer require those things. It would also mean that they would forever remain in that position, unable to move. Then again, Sunflower could not move and would certainly die if she did not act. For herself, she had lived many happy years and explored so many wonderful places, that to stay in one place now might not be such a bad thing. She told Sunflower of this magic that she could enact for them, and asked whether it was something he felt he could do.

Sunflower took a long time to think about this. The sun fell, and the moon rose, and there were lots of children out and about dressed in weird and wonderful costumes and carrying broomsticks and cauldrons and lanterns cut from pumpkins. There was a chill in the air, and Truffle was concerned that if Sunflower took much longer to respond, the timing would be passed, the magic lost.

The streets had fallen silent, and only the bats moved when Sunflower spoke.  "I accept your offer of eternity, Truffle. How shall it be enacted?"

"I lift you to my heart, and you lean into me. That is all."

"Then lift away!"

Tenderly, Truffle put her forepaws under Sunflower and lifted him up to her heart area. In his turn, feeling the beat through Truffle's chest, Sunflower leaned strongly against her as if wishing to merge. Slowly there was a stiffening and, for both of them, a sense of relief.

Shoppers coming to the mall the next morning were delighted with the new statue, which brought a smile and a photo opportunity. It pleased kids and grown-ups alike. One man stopped and stared into the eyes of that statue and remembered how yesterday he had nearly killed a squirrel that had no business being in the town centre. He remembered how it had stared back at him with the same endless look that he now found in this statue...

Ⓒ Yamini Ali MacLean 2022