From An Admirer

The small brown parcel arrived in the mail on Thursday afternoon. As I untied the string holding it closed, I thought to myself, "who ties parcels with string anymore? We have a little thing called tape, people!" After struggling with knots that were clearly tied with a heavy-duty industrial knot-tying machine and resorting to my pocket knife, I ripped the paper off and threw off the cardboard lid.

Inside, on a bed of tissue paper, lay a singular flower. It was tiny and delicate, five blue petals with a yellow eye. There was no note, no card, not even a return address. The message, I deduced, must be the flower itself.

I retrieved the wildflower guide I received for Christmas some years ago from an aunt too cheap to get me a proper gift, and flipped through its pages. After about twenty minutes of searching, I found it; a True Forget-me-not, Myosotis scorpioides.

"Forget-me-not?" I thought, baffled and a little bit weirded out, "who wants me to remember them? It seems I've already forgotten the fool!" I chuckled at my own irreverent insouciance. I got up to put the book back on its shelf, and as I closed the cover, a slip of paper fell out from between the pages and landed at my feet. Could this be what the flower's sender meant for me to find?

I bent down to examine it.

TO BE CONTINUED!