Sunflowers

By Shane Bowen

Sometimes the most dangerous things lurk right in front of you!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9780359862306

Book preview

Sunflowers

Sunflowers

A Short Story by Shane Bowen

1

Hey! Lori yelled as she stepped around the corner of the shed in her backyard. I appreciate you guys cleaning out my gutters, but can you throw that stuff somewhere besides my flowerbed?

Sorry about that, her cousin Pauly said. I wasn’t paying much attention. When was the last time you cleaned these out?

I’ve never done it.

Well, you better have a good lunch planned after I dig all this junk out.

Yeah, there will be plenty of food, she said and went to clean up the flowerbed. She was glad to find only a few handfuls of rejected gutter waste. Normally, she would have welcomed the rotted leaves, but this stuff was a sloppy mess. She grabbed a three-gallon pail from the shed, put on some gloves, and started tidying up. She saw her mom coming down the steps from the deck to her right.

What do you have planted this year? Lori’s mom asked, stopping a few feet away. Petunias? Tulips? Roses, maybe? I do love roses.

Nope, I went with Gerbera Daisies and sunflowers.

Oh, sunflowers! Those oils are fantastic. Your uncle John swears by them. He says they give him relief from his arthritis and he cooks with them. Maybe you can send him some once you harvest the seeds.

I hadn’t really thought about harvesting anything, Lori said, scooping up the last pile of rotten leaves. I just think they are beautiful and wanted to be able to look at them when I sit on the deck.

I see.

Lori stood up, grabbed the pail, and said, I don’t even know how to make the oils.

I was only making a suggestion, Lori.

Okay, she said and walked to the edge of the woods to empty her pail. Her house stood in the middle of twenty acres. It was all wooded except the acre and a half that had been cleared for the home. She considered taking an impromptu hike, but felt like that wouldn’t be a good move since her family was trying to help around the house.

She was staring off into the trees when she heard tiny footsteps rushing across the grass. She turned just in time to see her dog, Monkey, almost run into her. Dragon, a German Shepherd mix, was close behind. He had lost a leg to infection a few years earlier, but had gotten pretty good at running again.

Hey, buddies, she said and reached down to pet them. She had three dogs, but Monkey was the favorite and he knew it. He was the smallest, a Pekingese mix, at fourteen pounds. She often told him he was a chunker. His tongue lolled out the side of his mouth as he welcomed the attention.

I gotta get back to work, she whispered to them and they turned for the house, as if they knew what she said. Dragon got a head start and went straight for the big blue pillow on the deck. It was