Bloodstained Sego Lily
Parent tended the garden when Babette was occupied, usually in the evenings or all Sabbath day, since Babette was away and did not need watching. The garden was the only living thing in the backyard when Parent spent time there. Parent would tend to roses, chrysanthemums, tulips, and sego lilies. It provided Parent with purpose—and purpose allowed Parent to keep going.
During the day, Parent’s purpose was to watch over Babette. Babette was Parent’s life—if life could be considered a purposeful existence. Parent played with Babette, helped Babette learn words and arithmetic and knowledge. Parent went on walks with Babette, took Babette to the park—but kept Babette out of the garden. It was Parent’s garden, not Babette’s garden.
As the years went on, though, Parent considered lifting the rule of disallowing Babette into the garden. Babette would no longer crumple the roses and walk over the tulips. The sego lilies, flowers of a polity now covered in water, were strong, healthy, able to handle Babette’s presence. So, Parent decided to let Babette into the garden.
Babette knew what flowers were, but Parent still walked through the collective knowledge about the plants.
“Calochortus nuttallii, the sego lily,” Parent said in Parent’s monotone voice. “The bulbs were once made into a porridge. When the pioneers, your ancestors from thousands of years ago, traveled by foot—yes, foot, Babette—the bulbs of the sego lily helped them to survive.”
Babette reached out to touch the sego lily, and Parent reached out a hand, just in case Babette’s fingers closed around the sego lily and—there was something wrong with this sego lily. Parent magnified onto the flower. Yes, red, red on the flower.
“Babette, what is that redness?” Parent asked.
“Blood,” Babette responded.
Parent examined Babette, but nothing seemed odd.
“And whose blood is that?”
Babette looked at the bloodstained sego lily, looked at Parent, looked at her finger, looked at Parent’s finger, and looked at the bloodstained sego lily.
“The sego lily’s.”
I am participating in #Archtober from the ARCH-HIVE. They challenged creators to create something every day, or every other day, for the month of October and base it on a theme. I’m free writing for 30 minutes every two days based on the two-day schematic and theme rules they’ve established. So, the writing will probably not be super coherent, but it’ll be fun.
This writing prompt was honestly difficult to piece together something to, but I’ve been having a lot of fun playing with point of view lately, so I wanted to write in third-person of a genderless android caretaker. So, that’s what I did.
