Wait What!? Are They For Real?!

Wait what!? Are they for real?!

A DANDELION

And is Justin Vernon literally pointing at it while wearing the albatross face mask?!

I didn’t see the signs no (well the albatross ☑️)

🎃

HAPPY FREAKING HALLOWEEN TO US?!

What parallel universe did we step into

🎃 Imagine this. You are walking through your yard. It's one of your favorite places, all sprawling garden rows and vibrant green grass. There are herbs for cooking and spell casting. There are daisies - so many daisies - in every shade of your rainbow. Up ahead you spot a small cropping of weeds, and set your foot on each stepping stone of the path that leads right to them. The house is a little farther now, but you are still within the confines of your tall and impenetrable fence. Nothing comes through that fence. Not now and not ever. Within it you are safe. Your lover and your fresh baked buns are safe. (The buns, of course, are in the oven turning golden as you speak. It's an old family recipe, jotted lovingly on a recipe card.) You reach the weeds and pluck a dandelion. Caught up in a moment of buoyant childlike whimsy, you make a wish and blow, blow, blow. Hundreds of featherly florets scatter. You laugh. You watch as they ride the breeze, one floret in particular. It drifts and dances like all the others, but as the wind changes direction it swoops over the fence. You lose sight of it, and send a silent apology to whoever ends up with a cropping of dandelions in their yard. Did you know that dandelions don't need to be purposefully planted all at once? All it takes is for one small seed to catch on the breeze, and by then it has spread irreversibly. You'd never know where the initial seed came from, because it has started so small and floated so far. You swallow, staring at the fence. It was you who blew the dandelion in the first place. It was you who ventured too closely to the edge of the garden. It was chance and weather that landed it where it did. You breathe in, and deep and out, expelling the growing anxiety from your body. You turn back to the house. You have those homemade buns to tend to, after all. But as you reach the door you can't help but cast a furtive glance over your shoulder, to the spot where that dandelion floret disappeared. You can never blame someone for the dandelions that sprout in your grass. It’s untraceable and irrelevant. They all come from the same place anyway: a private moment performed too near the property line. Of course the recipient would pluck the weeds so unwittingly planted. Of course they, too, would blow, blow, blow and spread the florets far and wide. Once you blow a dandelion, you never get it back. It isn’t yours anymore. 🎃