By Micheal Degnan

The sunflower is on the corner by the library and reminds me of Stephen. All sunflowers do. Even Van Gogh’s. Even those that my niece stamps out on construction paper with sponges.

I first met Stephen my freshman year. He was a senior and had applied for school funding to start a zymurgy club. He used the money on a home-brew kit and several bags of grain. He tossed me a beer when I came in. “Welcome to the club,” he said.

I started to come by every week. Each time, I discovered something new, something that hadn’t reached the suburbs where I grew up. Prosciutto wrapped asparagus. W.B. Yeats. The Bhagavad Gita.

His apartment was filled with plants. Ficus trees and spider plants. Succulents and bonsai trees. “I retain information better if I read by plants,” he told me.

In the front of his apartment was a bed of fifty sunflowers. He had planted them the previous summer, once housing assignments were announced. They were over six feet tall and swayed in the breeze like a pendulum.

Every day, he would cut one flower and take it to class. On his way back to the apartment, he would give it to someone. “May your day bring you joy,” he would say.

Gradually, the stand of flowers receded, marking the passing of our days. 

That was twenty years ago. I haven’t spoken to Stephen since he graduated. I consider texting him a picture of the sunflower by the library, the plant nurturing the pursuit of knowledge.

But I hesitate. What is this paralysis — fear that he won’t respond? Or that he will? 

Instead, I go into the library, hoping to discover something new, like why time is a human construct or how perennials can return after being dormant for so long.

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Michael Degnan lives on an island in Maine. His work has appeared in Bright Flash Literary Review, Maudlin House, Every Day Fiction, Flash Fiction Magazine, and elsewhere.