Dandelions

• Amelie Linklater, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2022

I open my eyes to see I’m standing in a field, wind blowing in my face. The yellow green grass stretches out as long as the horizon in each direction. Pale flowers bloom and sway with the wind. Dandelion seeds swirl around me in the wind, placing themselves in the ground somewhere in the distance. I feel my feet on the ground.
My hands shake.
The path stands in front of me. It’s a simple dirt path and goes on for as long as the field. I look over my shoulder and see nothing. Always nothing. It stretches on behind me. My hands brush the grass as I walk. It shimmers with yesterday’s rain.
Occasionally, I see a single crow or raven flying against the misty blue sky, outlined by the white clouds. They fly in graceful, swooping movements.
This place seems still, like a separate place from the rest of the world, stuck in time. The air seems strangely damp. Moths rest on the stems of dandelions, their pale wings hidden in leaf litter. They glide around in a strangely synchronised movement. As I walk forward, I see more rise. I cock my head but don’t think about it too much.
I feel a dull ache on my temples. The head pains are back, I guess. I walk faster now that I have something to get back home for. The afternoon sun shines on the flowers, the swaying grass, my shaking hands.
My head swims.
I can see the horizon stretch and bend as the pains in my temples get worse and my vision splotches. Is this real, I wonder, or just another fever dream? My eyes scan the ground beneath me. More birds fly above me as I walk.
My vision becomes blurry, spotted with shimmering patches. My feet feel steady in the ground but my head feels so dizzy and unstable. I stop walking, ready to just lie down on the ground if I need to. I take a shaky breath in and then out. I pick a dandelion and blow off each seed. They disperse into the grass. My hand stretches out in front of me, speckled with white. I smile, for the first time in a while.
The fields bend in a daze-like state. My mind races as my vision is completely taken over by what seems like white shards of glass, little fragments of stars clustering my sight. I close my eyes and sigh. Is this when I wake up, or was this real in the first place?
When I open my eyes again, I smile. Yes. This is when I wake up.