I remember the first time I saw one. I was 17, and had hitch-hiked to California from Colorado, where I grew up. I just stood in front of it and tried to square it with any other life form I had ever encountered, and couldn't.
They are as common as roses here. There's a giant variety, too, that blooms white. I have a few. The biggest is 25' tall. The seeds are fringed with an insane orange fuzz...They are African natives, but seem to like California weather well enough.
I started thinking about them because of this night's work. A boy, raised in confinement, has found a way out. He is starting across the chaparral desert--and will soon see a bank covered with these blooms. And he is going to have to stand in front of them and try to believe that they are real. I hope he can. He is so damaged. So isolated and hurt. This might be the angriest story I have ever written.
