ectar. He was
feeling quite smug that, at least compared to that recluse, his kind
were visibly better.

But then, proximity to the poppy family started him thinking. Firstly,
unlike his brothers, the poppies were well tended. A dutiful human
watered and caressed the plants commenting on the fullness of the pod
and the grandeur of their petals. Yet, all Adua could see was a lot of
goitered looking droopy herbage. As time went on, it became painfully
obvious that the big house and her attendants had established clearly a
floral arrangement that did not include dandelions. Adua grudgingly
admitted some of his cousins, in careful manicured garden beds,
deserved their swooning praise. But not, not the poppies. Why, they
were not even solid North Americans like himself. They had no native
roots in the solid soil of his pastureland. The poppy was an Oriental
import, too foreign to be assimilated. And what of its reputation for
buccaneering. In some countries it was illegal even to grow them!
Wasn't it worse than the demon weed since its seeds carried the
substance necessary for narcotics? Surely, anything brewed of opium
should be shunned in real life. Convinced of his moral superiority,
Adua could at least comfort himself with the realization his breed was
of a fine upstanding kind, even if reduced by circumstance to humble
origins. His kind went about their business peacefully enough.

As summer ripened into fall after all dandelions had long stopped
blooming, Adua was content to pass his declining months as a stringy
plant. It was then Adua came to learn more painful truths stalked the
earth. Other flowers were plucked for corsages, arrayed in stately
carriages for banquets, had toasts drunk to them and found themselves
into the hair of pretty maidens. The most Adua had ever seen his
dandelions construed for in the spring was a mere ringlet chain. True,
hardy souls brewed a concoction of dandelion wine but what good was
that if it was rebuked with taunts of "too bitter," or "how crass,"?

As the cold winds licked about him, gone were the memories of his
tussled gold headdress worn a season ago. He was about to commandeer
the last of his strength before frost demanded his shop close for the
winter. Through progeny produced months before, his kind would spend
the cold in tolerable warmth as a seed. Germination was such a
marvelous adventure. And what of poppy'? Instead of feeling that burst
of speed and sense of the unkno