text: The contest of flowers would be the first battle in Taru’s campaign to imprint himself on the world. Any angel who would go on to create something grand, something to endure unchanged and admired in the world for generations, should have no trouble conquering a school competition. Well read on the landmarks of past angel’s creations, Taru had little interest in the modest crafting that fascinated his peers. Taru failed to understand why anyone committed years to learning to sculpt dirt, granite, or worms. His father spent the duration of his tenure with the Institute of Palm Trees working on a single coconut, and not even creating it, just altering the composition of the shell to better “harmonize with the surrounding ecosystem” as he would say it. Taru saw dark comedy in his father’s humorless pride in this work and the institute’s willingness to generously compensate him for it. When the gods ended the world and started it up again they filled it with the angel’s new creations. They carried few creations forward from one cycle to the next, but the French Marigold made the cut in every rebirth since its creator introduced it over a hundred cycles ago. The French Marigold, the oldest creation, proved beyond doubt the exceptional talent of its sculptor. Taru would devote himself to no less than this grandeur, so when he graduated secondary school and it was time for him to earn his creation license, he enrolled in the Florist School of Seneca. The morning after Taru moved onto campus he accepted an invitation from the dean to visit the auditorium. The first and third place winners from the last contest of flowers remained on the stage. The flower in third place seemed wholly superior to the flower in first, less an imitation and of finer construction, with a dark purple stem in the form of a trident. Each prong of the trident ended in bright blue lotus petals, all aligned as if a scaled lizard’s tale had been twisted. As Taru studied the winning flower, a cheap Marigold derivative, he realized he did not understand what separated winners from losers in this place. Factors presently hidden to him which were unrelated to the quality of the flowers must decide, possibly the tensions of some invisible social order. “Are you Taru?” a man asked, interrupting Taru’s study of the flower. Taru looked down at the man, an inch or three shorter than him. His posture leaned forward to accommodate a large gut over which a red t-shirt had been impressively tucked into jeans. Taru prayed this man was not the dean. “I’m Dr. Haman, the Dean of Students,” the man continued, “and this is Blue.” He pointed to a young boy beside him, perhaps sixteen, who was bouncing on his toes and scanning for the appropriate moment to introduce himself, which had now passed. Dr. Haman explained that all new students were matched in “buddy pairs”, and that Blue and Taru were one such pair. Taru took Blue for a walk through the campus garden, which exhibited flowers designed by the school’s alumni. Taru explained to Blue that the reason he chose to enroll in the Florist School of Seneca, the flower which earned the school its reputation and continued to attract the greatest florists, waited at the end of the garden’s meandering path. It was of course the French Marigold. The French Marigold enjoyed precisely the notoriety and envy which Taru so wanted to earn in a creation of his own. Taru often regretted that he had himself not created the French Marigold. To Blue he made clear that in the world of florists one had to choose between the pursuit of perfection, of the ideal, and reaching beyond what people will say is reasonable, or else to settle for a life of building derivatives, of flowers like the flowers that came before. In the latter life, since it compromises the integrity of creation anyway, one might as well pick up a consistent paycheck by designing rocks. Taru said these things confidently, though he had never created anything himself. While Taru looked ahead as he spoke, Blue looked at Taru. He listened earnestly to Taru’s sermon and demonstrated that he was paying attention by asking “how do you know so much?” or remarking at his luck for matching with a studious buddy. When they reached the French Marigold, Blue studied it at all angles. Taru watched Blue admire this flower, its beautiful layering like the eruption of a volcano, its petals spraying out in deep red with a gold trim in some places sharp and in others approaching from the edges in a dithered gradient. He realized he had created an association for Blue between himself and this flower which even the smallest failure could shatter. A vision came to him of placing second, or third, or unimaginably, not at all in the monthly contest of flowers he would soon participate in as a student. It may become another student, less well read than Taru, who in the end designed the next flower to withstand the cycles, which authors would discuss at length in books on the process of design. This intolerable fate could not come to pass. He excused himself from their walk by telling Blue he wanted to review the syllabus, and went to his room to try creating a flower for the first time. He knew failures were inevitable, but he could preserve his future by getting them out of the way in private. With his books on the French Marigold as reference, by morning Taru succeeded in creating a stem with petals at the end, though it had nothing else, no carpels or sepals, and the petals did not unfold in bloom. He did not even vary the color of the petals, covering them in a uniform diffuse red. When he tried to create the core and fill it with carpels, the centerpiece on which bees would land to carry his flower forward into its future generations, arguably the most important and essential part of any flower, he struggled. No matter which angle he tried to construct the core from, whether he placed the sepals, carpels, or petals first, they would become an obstruction and prevent the placement of the other two. Not even petals were required for the first lab described in the syllabus, but Taru had expected far more from himself considering the depth of his knowledge. He had no pride in the result, but there was a moment, in the second hour, in which he forgot himself. He saw only the curve of the stem as he bent it at the ends with his pliers, like it was the only illuminated object in a far reaching darkness. When the moment concluded he again heard the clock ticking toward morning. Taru worried that the other students had already learned to construct flower cores, and he would suffer their explanations the next day in the lab. Assuring himself this was unlikely, he called it a night with his coreless flower. Thankfully it was enough. In the first day’s lab class they were to create a leafless stem, a smooth tube with a subtle curve and change in thickness. Blue sat next to Taru and admired how quickly he created a satisfactory stem. Taru helped Blue and some other students to apply the curve correctly, who said “how did you do that?” and “wow, you’re good at this.” For that day at least, Taru crossed the battlefield unscathed. At the end of the lab their lecturer made two announcements. One, the first contest of flowers for his class would be held at the end of the month. She expected every student to sculpt a sexually reproductive flower, including a core with carpels, though it did not need to be alive of course. Two, an optional workshop would be held after class each day to work on cores and carpels, which all new students were encouraged to attend because this was a difficult task. Signing up for the workshop did not even occur to Taru. He only took note that he had a short deadline for learning to build flower cores on his own. He tapped his foot waiting for the lecturer to finish her speech so he could rush off to the library and then his room. By the time Blue turned to pass the workshop sign up clipboard to Taru, he had already left. Late that night a knock on his dorm room door relieved Taru of his still fruitless efforts to build the core of a French Marigold. Seeing through the peephole that his visitor was Blue, Taru stored the incomplete flower in his drawer and welcomed his guest. Blue had just returned from a study session with some of their classmates, arranged impromptu after the flower core workshop. He paced as he explained to Taru that, though he had never been a smart student himself, he thought the students at the Florist School of Seneca were serious and he could learn a lot by studying with them, with people like Taru. Taru forgave Blue for comparing him to other students. As much as Blue radiated the mediocrity which Taru so resented in prouder people, Blue was all together too earnest to ascribe ill intent. This brand of mediocrity was less infectious and Taru did not fear it. As he watched the boy pace eagerly back and forth in the room, Taru noticed a condescending affection in himself. From his backpack Blue pulled out a daisy, patchy and fragile but complete with a core. “Look at what I made in the workshop!” Taru thought until then he might show his incomplete flower to Blue, to show that he was attempting to build a Marigold, not a basic Shasta Daisy like they covered in the workshop. Now he certainly would not. “That’s great Blue! Which core assembly method did they teach in the workshop?” “Core assembly method? I’m not sure if I know that term. We used clamps to hold the stem in place while we assembled it, if that’s what you mean?” Taru gripped his hairline and stared off behind Blue. Why had he not thought of using clamps to hold the stem in place? It was so simple and obvious. So simple in fact, that Taru began to wonder if there was anything this school had to teach him at all. “Oh um,” Blue said hesitantly, “is that not the right way or..?” Taru laughed once and reassured Blue he was only tired. “You did good, Blue” he said, and sent him home for the night. Taru waited twenty minutes to be certain Blue had made it back to his own dorm, and then walked to a late night store across the street to purchase clamps. A week later in lab class, Taru’s completed daisy met the requirements of the assignment but earned no one’s envy. He sat in his seat with small posture, even once pretending to be sleepy on his desk, to ensure no one misinterpreted the janky flower as the product of his devoted effort. Their lab instructor introduced a student in the front. Taru recognized the student from having seen him walk out of the workshop with Blue. Blue leaned over to Taru and whispered unwanted context. “That’s Don. He really knows his stuff.” The projector painted Don’s flower on the wall for the class to see. In the finely creased off white petals, the dense and uniform carpel placements in varying shades and hues of yellow, the continuous curve of the stem with leaves at appropriate points, Taru realized what had been bothering him about the school since his arrival. Don’s flower was undeniably a quality reconstruction of a Shasta Daisy, but only a reconstruction. If Taru were ever to achieve anything, to make a genuinely novel contribution to the world, he would have to forsake all precedent and make his own way. But however genius his creation would be in the end, it would never enter the world without his having a creation license. He must continue, however trite it may be. And trite it was. Their instructor, who wrote each student a note with criticisms of their flower, had said of his, “unrealistic shapes, sculpted from memory; consider the evening workshops.” By Taru’s account, “realism” meant nothing more than conformity to precedent, the death of idealism. The poison of pragmatism should never have been allowed to take root in the veins of society, to drain its color and pride until it was only a room full of people afraid to leave the room simply because they had never left the room before. This was the infectious mediocrity which Taru wanted to escape, and it had a tight grip on the institutions. To the contest Taru submitted a rubric flower. It met the criteria and offered to the corrupt ceremony no more of his soul than necessary. By so carefully abstaining, Taru had hoped he would survive the charade, secure his creation license in a few months’ time, and be free to do right by nature in the end. Taru stood at the back of the auditorium and watched Dr. Haman waddle onto the stage, looking at every step like he would fall forward on that large gut of his. Imagining it to be the fattle little man himself, Taru reached in his pocket and crushed in his fist the note Dr. Haman had given him that morning, which placed Taru on academic probation for lack of effort. Dr. Haman announced the winning flowers. An imitation daffodil received third place and an imitation Rose received second. Having then heard enough, Taru walked out of the auditorium. After the ceremony Taru accepted Blue’s invitation to celebrate over drinks with his friends, though Blue did not mention to celebrate what. Taru slid into their corner booth and drank three old fashions, a pina colada, and began work on a lager beer. He felt strangely comfortable around Blue’s study group friends, who seemed to him eager in the way of young children who successfully persuaded their babysitter to play house with them. His liberal tongue and readiness to criticize the school fascinated them as if dissent itself were a novelty. The most enjoyable of this attention came from Don. When Taru arrived, Don greeted him first and said “We’ve heard a lot about you from Blue.” Taru felt free to show his indignation, knowing they would assume it was a familiar joke, and shouted “And what the hell does Blue know about me?” Blue laughed so the others laughed, and Taru was welcome. With the confidence he collected from the so far warm reception of his loose mouth, he turned his critiques toward the contest of flowers. He began “And this institution is the most perverse of them all. It’s a law of nature that every angel wants to be better than every other angel, and knowing this they create a system in which only surrender to their worldview can earn you the superiority you all naturally crave. “If you take a step back and a deep breath, what do you see in those winning flowers? They are imitations, knock offs, shadows of what greater artists contributed to the world cycles ago. That’s what this school, and the whole concept of studying precedent, are designed to do: trap the new artists in the shadow of the ones that came before them. “Like all men want to be the best, all artists want the envy of other artists. They want their work to hurt other artists simply by existing, to make them feel worthless and forsake the arts. And how better to accomplish that than seizing the institutions? How better than by controlling the education systems, and forcing every new artist who might have become a threat to struggle in futility to imitate your unique style which is yours alone? “And here I warn you all. Never give them your soul. When they demand your passion, hold it tight to your heart. Otherwise you become complicit, your hands as dirty as the oppressors and eventually your mind as well. And the crime, a crime against the world itself, is to deprive the world of beauty, the beauty that you and the artists you lead astray might have given us.” In the passion of his sermon Taru failed to notice Blue’s friends had looked away from him, toward Blue. Don put a hand on Taru’s shoulder. “Ah, uh, Taru,” he began awkwardly, “Maybe Blue’s celebration is not the occasion.” Through his five drinks Taru managed to recall that Blue did not tell him the purpose of their celebration, and that he did not ask. If Blue didn’t say, he must have assumed Taru already knew, which would only make sense if, not having known that Taru walked out of the auditorium early... The conclusion did not make sense to him. But, in his drunkenness, he asked anyway. “Blue did you win?” He had. Taru needed to escape. He excused himself to the restroom and walked home. His theory had failed to account for Blue, who by all accounts was above reproach, and for whom even imitation was not a given but something to strive for. It could be consistent if Blue, and Taru’s own father in the same way, were simply victims of the oppressors. But Blue would soon be prescribing his own path to others, tutoring underclassmen or recommending florist school to friends. He would not need to change in character to do these things, in fact they followed naturally from his present character. If it was a crime to become cozy with oppressors, Blue was guilty of it even now, and must be condemned along with the worst of them. But later in the night when Blue knocked on the door, Taru invited him in. Taru sat in his desk chair and offered a seat on the bed to Blue, and in his mind rehearsed the defenses he had prepared for his belief. He could feel the bluntness ready in himself, a drunk too tired to think about two things at once. Blue didn’t mention Taru’s sermon at all. He said “You said you were going to the restroom, but didn’t come back. We checked the restrooms to make sure you hadn’t passed out, and when we didn’t find you I assumed you came back here.” Taru had not rehearsed a defense for this angle of attack. Understanding he was cornered, that being in the right was no longer viable, he strategized instead to at least contain the knowledge of this defeat between him and Blue alone. He must establish trust, change this from a quarrel between schoolmates to an issue privileged with the discretion of close friends. And in his uninhibited state he reached for the broken marigold he hid in his desk drawer days earlier, and set it on the desk. “A flower from your discard pile? Why are you pulling that out?” Blue asked, barely looking at it for a second. A discard pile. Where Taru labored on a single flower, struggling to restore it and backtrack after each mistake, Blue had been starting over with a clean slate each time. Iterating that way was surely faster. As he struggled to summon the kind of rationale he always had readily available in his sobriety, it occurred gently to Taru that perhaps he should be more skeptical of thoughts that only make sense in one state of mind. Blue hugged Taru and wished him a good night, adding that he might do well to “talk to someone”. Taru could not sleep. He saw the flowers from the campus garden in his mind, the ones at the front which no one worshipped, and wondered if the artists behind them were like Blue. Did they invite their friends to celebrate when their flowers were selected for the world? In the seconds just before falling asleep, Taru imagined an ordinary daisy and the worm filled dirt in which it grew, and felt in his chest a warm affection for his unremarkable father. After finishing a mediocre flower, Taru put his head down to daydream through lab class. He thought about calling his father back home and asking him about his work, since it might earn Taru some authority at the school to have an industry connection. Blue interrupted Taru’s thoughts by tapping his head with the workshop’s sign up clipboard. Taru sat up and looked to his side at Don, who was not yet expecting to be passed the board, and decided that after their night at the bar, getting his attention was worth procrastinating. Taru scanned the classroom for anyone who might be looking his way, then signed the clipboard beneath Blue’s name and placed it on the corner of Don’s desk. *Feedback requested. I will thank you for it even if it hurts my feelings. Thank you.