Today, we are featuring Inklings Book Contest 2024 finalist Natalie Yue! Natalie wrote a layered and emotional short story titled “The Ugly Dandelion.” Her skill for world-building and unique, flowery voice will keep you hooked until the very end. Continue below to enjoy her work in digital book or plain text form.
Winter is coming too soon.
A searing wind sweeps across the same lonely, frosted meadow, bringing cold dewdrops onto my frail, crooked leaves and drooping stem. It is another dreadful morning, half buried in the frigid soil that attempts to treasure its last few autumn days. My crown of white parachutes is matted with dirt and cold water. I survey the nearby mountains, glinting with glassy ice peaking at their tops. A timid ray of light peers over the tallest hill overhead, flickering tauntingly. It’s too late. My Wilting is approaching stealthily, waiting to knock my consciousness away. I strain the top of my stem, scanning the distraught, isolated meadow. It’s not even a meadow anymore, but a shadow of what it used to be. A reminiscence of the vibrant, stunning haven I used to know. Curtains of golden petals glint disdainfully in the sunlight, and small stretches of the older dandelions, patches of white fluff swaying wistfully in the breeze. Before everyone was gone. Before everyone sailed away in the last sun’s warmth.
When I first rose from the Earth, I believed I would be Chosen first. I believed I would glide off in a harmonious sleep and awaken in what our Drift calls Paradise. I knew the risks. You could sense the cat’s wet nose and deadly whiskers before its inevitable daggers snapped your stem in half. And in flight, the journey had its own share of obstacles. Airborne creatures threatening you down the wrong path. Moody currents ushering you off to sea. Naturally, these things occurred infrequently. Yes, it seemed blissful. Not having to worry about Wilting or the unpredictable, boiling days when your roots prayed for rain.
My dreams were wrong. I had sprouted with scarcely more than two decent petals and my fronds remained scrunched and fragile, speckled with the shade of mud a pig would refuse to have its bath in. Yes, I comprehended this vaguely enough. In my early days, no one cared. No one bothered. There were too many of us, littering the field in yellow and white. Pollinators swarmed our grassland dutifully, antennae twitching. But when the first noises of heavy footsteps on the earth (we lost Uncle Puff in the Humanquake of 2012) approached our population, everything changed. Relatives and friends were swept from their roots by gleeful children sprinkling their wishes into the heavens beyond. It was fun for a while, the juveniles and I, envisioning Paradise and observing the older in our drift of dandelions waft away in the cheery breeze, then goggling at the white velvety parachutes cascading from the sky, planting their seeds into the fertile soil. Days melted away. The meadow cleared and dandelions grew sparse. The few youngsters that remained stood inches away from me, but we didn’t speak. I was blinded by the sunlit yellow gleaming off their foliage and their hearty laughs (or was it mocking?) from under the oak. Perhaps I wasn’t used to it. Perhaps I was accustomed to my own, meager petals and decaying leaves. But as the meadow cleared, realization drew to me. Here I was, still invisible from the light, still reminiscing the scene that was once alive.
An unforeseen noise sputters me from my daydreams. Shuddering, I crane my stem, scanning the bleak wasteland, straining my ears. There goes the sound again. The weak grass rustles and parts way as something frail limps through on the opposite side of the meadow engulfed in the afternoon’s gloom. I recoil slightly, since my first thought as a dandelion, naturally, when spotting any large animal is I’m going to die. But my instincts don’t attack me this time (or maybe I decide it’s worth the risk given that I am on the brink of Wilting anyway). I squint as it hobbles through the clearing on four scuffling limbs. Its nose sniffs the air, as if inhaling desolation’s scent, then clearly quivering, wheels around to face me. I jolt back in realization and surprise. It can’t be. The last of them came through here a week ago, hurriedly tunneling themselves inches from where I stood, until they disappeared into the snowy fortress where they spend the winter. Not only is it warm, but there is plenty of food and protection against the cold, so most of them scuttle down there at the first chance possible. And yet—a vole is standing a few feet before me, clueless of its surroundings, scrawny coat barely keeping it alive in the musty air encircling the landscape and the knots of petrified weeds.
In my attempt to get a more adjacent view of it, I grimace at the sharp agony and remain in a stooped position, just enough to peer over the tall weeds. The animal is still, looks to one side then the other, clearly hesitant of its surroundings. It trips over a couple of torn-up roots and crouches for a few whole seconds, head low, as if to grieve.
And then it begins to dig.
Its scrawny claws fumble at the stubborn dirt, prying off grass bits carelessly. When he is done, there is no hole, but instead the equivalent mark of a butterfly’s footprint. This process is repeated several times, enough for my shriveled roots to sense the creature’s desperate presence prodding the surface. The field remains obstinate despite its beseeching protests. I wonder how it could be doing worse than I am. Even now, as the sickly shape rummages around, growing nearer by the second, the vole is trying. But for what?
Hidden in the outline of the mountains, I am certain he cannot sniff me out nor the camouflaged burrow entrance beyond the scent of misery.
It begins to rain. Not the kind that torrents down—but the kind that freezes before hitting the ground, resembling sleet, my feared enemy. I feel exposed and vulnerable, like a daisy among thousands of roses. Like it has finally found me. The animal seeks refuge, hurrying close to the small clumps of bushes and growing ever so near to where I am. The ground is plastered in mud, squelching under his stubby paws as he grasps at the icy air in front of him. Before I know it, I can see him distinctly, approaching me with his wary nose. I become slowly aware of the fact that this is the end of my story. And yet, as I watch the small creature find its way into the little patch of shade I have lived under my whole life, I understand that at least I will go to someone in need. Not a rambunctious, snarling beast or a paw that demolishes me to smithereens. That’s every unlucky dandelion’s fate. Taken for a meal that isn’t deserved. At least my death wouldn’t be in vain.
I can now hear its noisy, snuffling sounds as it shuffles towards me. I grimace at the state the vole is in. Bits of ice and dirt are tangled into his fur, and his paws hang limply at his sides as he lets out a series of shuddering squeaks.
For a couple of seconds, he fumbles in front of him, sniffing. He knows I am here. And then without warning, his claws seize my stalk, so that I can hardly breathe. Leaves are crumbled under the strength of the little creature’s grasp. I am lifted into the air as he squints, and I get a waft of grass, dirt, and grime. I don’t want to believe it. But this sacrifice could mean something. Not Wilting under my last painted sunset, my last listen of the rustling branches and the remembrance of the Pollinators that filled the meadow, but by helping. Isn’t that what I wanted to begin with?
The vole makes a gruff sort of sound. Two seconds pass. Then three. I am trapped in a kind of paralyzing pain enveloped in silence. But it doesn’t last. The vole’s grip releases me. Loosens until there is nothing holding me up. But I don’t fall helplessly back into the ground. The air around me seems lighter, and my vision smudges. Dizzied thoughts swirl through my head as I open my eyes.
It feels as though I have been brought from the darkness and introduced to the light. I float up towards the freedom of the heavens, adrenaline rushing as I soar over the trees—scattering gently among the clouds, illuminated by the glowing light settling just above the mountains—friends I have known for so long. And ah, yes, the meadow.
I glance down at the vole below—to watch the last of its tail vanish underneath a disrupted pile of roots to reunite with his colony, where I used to stand, under the oak tree that shadowed my existence. Contentment is something new to me. Something I saw as dandelions flew off. But this isn’t what I thought.
I’m not sure if I will ever find the rest of my Drift. Perhaps they have already moved on to places I will never find. Perhaps they are still waiting, waiting for me somewhere above. Hoping that I’m not abandoned. And yet, I am never truly alone.
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