In Two: The Fool

Chapter 2: Dandelion Shield

My pod speaker blares static at full volume.

Then it screeches its announcement like it is yelling at me: “Keep inside, keep prudent!”

I sigh—but it comes out as a low roar.

I have heard: “Keep inside, keep prudent” over and over for three long years. First, they said: “The Emergency environmental lockdown will last two weeks.” Then it stretched out to a month. Now they just say, “We are hopeful it will end soon.”

I won’t let the static char my spirit the way the scorching sun has my hopes and dreams.

I force my legs to move. My body feels like a puppet I have to consciously operate. I grab my keys from the hook by the door. The cold, jagged metal feels real. Or is it a convincing facsimile of what “cold” and “jagged” are supposed to feel like? Every detail I notice makes me question if the world is built… or programmed. 

I open the door and the hallway stretches out before me, its beige walls and repeating carpet pattern looking unnervingly uniform. For a moment, I wonder—are these hallways really walls, or just looping texture files in some unseen code? The hallway air tastes stale and recycled, like it’s never met a tree.

Glancing around to make sure no one sees, I slip outside before my allotted time slot. 

A soft, digital voice chimes from a hidden speaker in the ceiling. "Reminder: School pickup for residents in Pod Building 808 is scheduled for 4:01 p.m." I keep walking, even though my jaw clenches.

My feet carry me to the only remnant of nature in our community—the kids’ schoolyard. The sun feels like a stage light, it’s casting shadows that stretch too long, too precise, like they’ve been rendered. 

I slip off my shoes, letting my bare feet form a rhythm of hope against the hard-packed earth, “Du ba du bop be” they pound against the dry ground. In my imagination, I paint a better world over this one, a green screen hiding the doomsday prophecy come true. 

I pretend the wind from my dancing is waking Gaia, and that she’s dancing with me. I see the brittle yellow grass turn green, and wave at me. A buffalo storms by shaking the ground. The gates melt away, the loudspeakers fall silent, and the parents come outside to talk to each other, their faces relaxed and open. A world built on connection. To each other. To the land.

I twirl past the empty flower beds, their dirt cracked and barren. I picture them full of dandelions, the flower that can grow through any crack in the pavement. I lean down to sniff their fragrance, but the real smell of dust and decay breaks the spell—the green screen vanishes.

“Dong.”

Parents arrive to pick up their kids. Before they get close enough to see me, I pretend to pick a small bouquet of my invisible flowers, tucking them safely into my pocket. 

As the others move closer, I drop my eyes to the ground, unwilling to see my own entrapment reflected in their faces. Today, I’m choosing to see life. I catch my son Cillian’s eyes, and his bright gaze is a small lantern in the gloom. 

“Mommy!”

The word cuts through every cosmic question, every ounce of existential dread. He runs toward me, his backpack bounces wildly behind him. Cillian. 

His curly golden-brown hair is a mess, there’s a smudge of blue paint on his cheek, and his shoelaces are untied. He sees me, and his face breaks into that gap-toothed smile from the photo. He stumbles as he runs toward me—a movement too imperfect for an animation loop.

His small body crashes into my legs, and I wrap my arms around him, pulling him close. I bury my face in his hair. This is real. He smells of playground dirt and a faint, sweet scent of the juice box from his lunch. With his small frame pressed against mine I feel his warmth, and the solid, undeniable weight of him. No simulation could code this. Or if it did… wrapped up in a hug, it doesn’t matter.

“Do you have my flowers?” He asks me. I take my imaginary bouquet out of my pocket, and hand them to him. He reaches for them, and takes a whiff “They smell like roses today.” We both giggle at our silly ritual.

“Still no word of rain?” one of the mothers asks the air. I know she isn’t talking to me. The only person who talks to me is Cillian… and the speakers.

“How can there be no rain in sight,” I murmur, “and the CO₂ levels haven’t dropped when we’ve been locked down for years?” I didn’t mean to say it out loud. Stern looks flash my way.

Then, a white delivery truck rattles past. On its side, emblazoned in bold red letters, is the company’s phone number. “1-800-UN-KNOWN.” Unknown Number… The 3:33pm caller. Am I under surveillance?

“Do you want to put us all at risk?” The woman says, her voice short as a fuse. “Some of us are actually trying to follow the rules.” I see fear widening her pupils, just before she turns her back on me.

Cillian, holding his invisible bouquet, takes a happy step towards the woman and her daughter. "I have flowers!" he beams. The woman turns, and hisses: “We don't associate with conspiracy theorists.” Then grabs her daughter's arm, and walks off.

Her words are like bitter tea spilled on my day. If only it were dandelion tea, something to detoxify my soul.

I weave my way through the parents with their ice cold eyes to get home with Cillian, I try to hold the image of a dandelion in my mind—resilient, defiant, a shield.

But the shield is fragile, and the parents' sharp looks pierce through it. A woman’s glare sharpens a familiar chorus in my head: “Hippy. Freeloader. Single mom.” That’s what they think of me, that’s all I am. The rhythm of shame takes over my song of hope, and drowns out everything else with it.

I may never bloom in the open without being weeded out by the gardeners that plant our reality.