I arrived too late for the naming.
The blooms had already taken their places, each radiating a calm that did not include me. They were arranged as if the air itself had been persuaded to hold its breath: soft coronas, patient mouths, a pale heart in the center so bright that even the nearby colors seemed to hesitate before speaking.
It looked cheerful from a distance. Up close it was orderly, almost considerate. Every petal kept to its task, emitting its portion of light, and where the light overlapped it formed a gentle noise, like the murmur of people who know each other well and have nothing urgent left to say. I tried to listen for instructions, for a sign that my presence had been foreseen. The garden answered with a brightness that made excuses unnecessary.
I told myself I would stand only a moment, then another. The larger white bloom appeared to be explaining something essential to the others, how to open without fear, perhaps, or how to close without guilt. I waited for the lesson to include a figure shaped like me. It did not. The colors went on blooming with the confidence of beings that will never be required to justify themselves.
Evening will come, I thought, and they will sleep. But it occurs to me now that such creatures do not sleep; they only dim, which is a different kind of wakefulness, and during it they forget us completely.
