Magnolia petals lie thick on the ground, drift like snow along the path that curls around the mountain to the south of the city. Fragile white skins belie the lambent fuschia at their hearts, and in the morning stillness that reigns beneath the naked canopy they seem so delicate, don’t you think? Intricate flurries flare up behind the student’s classmate as he goes; the petals bloom with corruption in the woman’s wake. And yes, in our wake too. Of course, Gabriel. Our weight bruises and breaks the flowers, too. I wouldn’t have the gall to deny that.
The man who is leading the student to the campgrounds is carrying a vine in his hand. Its draconic blossoms nodand gape in unabashed carmine. His name is Cyril, of course.
No, I didn’t ask if she calls him Cy. It’s irrelevant.
The other scientist doesn’t turn when he says, “These are delicious, you know,” and so the botanist is still watching the petals swirl around his feet when she says, “Magnolias?”
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Cyril laughs and drops his pack: they’ve come to the sheer cliff face that marks the camping grounds.
“I mean, those are edible, too,” he says. “But I was talking about the nasturtium I’ve been carrying.”
“Oh,” says the scientist. “What do they taste like?”
”Like peppers,” says Cyril, and he eats one, grinning. The woman squints at the other doctoral student in suspicion, then takes the vine from his hand.
“You coming?” he asks as he removes his shoes.
“No. You don’t even have a rope!”
“Your loss.” The forager is still smiling as he begins to make his way up the rock face. The student watches her friend for a moment; he climbs like he’s never had to learn.
When the man has ascended above the gnarled reach of the magnolia canopy, the scientist turns her attention to the plant in her hands. She eats a flower, and the taste of it blooms bright and painful across her tongue.
She says, “That was horrible! Why would you do that to me?”
Cyril isn’t listening, so high up in the air, and so he isn’t looking when the botanist eats another flower. She eats the vine’s blossoms petal by petal. She doesn’t try to climb.