Dragonfly by Jax Hill 

Sully was happy to move in with Maggie, but he worried about the sunflowers. He didn’t have a pet, and he didn’t collect baseball cards or build models. I guess the only worthwhile thing he’d ever done was plant those seeds and tend to the flowers. Plus he really, really wanted to eat some of the seeds he’d grown himself.

To make him happy, when Maggie would bring him by the park, sometimes we’d walk with him to the building and let him look after the flowers and check on their progress. When they began to die, he was upset.

“What’s wrong with them?” he asked Torstein. “They’re all shriveled up.”

“Remember what I told you about the flowers? They have to die before the seeds can drop and get ready for next spring.”

“The flowers have to die,” Sully repeated.

“Yes, when the flowers die, then we can harvest the seeds. And the ones we don’t take, they’ll fall here, and next spring they’ll bloom again.”

Sully understood, but he still wanted to harvest most of them. Torstein explained to Maggie what to do with them, to soak them in saltwater overnight, to roast them in the oven. She and Tawny and Marigold helped Sully with the project, and then they brought us all some of the seeds. It was funny — Torstein started this whole organization by handing out free sunflower seeds to strangers on the street ... now Sully was handing them out to his friends.

It tickled Torstein.

“It’s perfect, Andy,” he said to me. “All of you are becoming more like me.”

“Maybe we should all get green coats,” I said, joking. “You know the Dunker’s followers all have those t-shirts.”

“You don’t need a coat for people to know you’ve been with me,” Torstein said. “People will know by the way you love each other.” He turned to the others who were sitting around, sharing the home-grown sunflower seeds.

“Listen, all of you,” he said. “These seeds are awesome, Sully, you’ve done a great job. And they’re more than just sunflower seeds. They’re a symbol. We all saw Sully’s, flowers how beautiful they were, and how they brightened up the entrance to the building. We saw the care that he took to grow them, and we benefited from their sunny appearance every day this summer. But they’re gone now. If they hadn’t left these seeds, there’d be nothing left of them.

“And what are the seeds? Dry, dead things that you can roast and eat, and then they’ll be gone, too. Hard shells that will get tossed in the trash once the sweet nut is broken out of them. But a few of the seeds, a few of them fell into the ground when the flowers died. They’re dead and buried so far as the world is concerned. Dried out seeds in a hardened shell without even salt and flavor to make them attractive to us. Next spring, though, next spring, they will be attractive. They’ll be more beautiful sunflowers!”

He grinned at us beatifically, just as if we’d all gotten the point. But I don’t think anyone had. Ferdy said, “Well at least we didn’t have to pay for these.” It was as good a conclusion for the sermonette as I could think of.

“No!” Torstein said. “No, idiot.” He reached out and gently rapped the top of Ferdy’s head with his knuckles. “You people are the sunflower seeds! I’m the sunflower seed! Some of us will fall so that more people can enjoy the beauty of the message we’re sharing with the world. I’m one of those seeds that falls into the ground, dried and hardened in a hollow shell with nothing to make anyone attracted to me. Some of you, some day, you’ll be the same. But then, when the time is right, there will be resurrection. And then our willingness to fall, to lie down and be buried, then it will mean a whole new harvest of beauty, the likes of which you can’t imagine.”

“What are you talking about?” Maggie said.

“I’m talking about the future,” Torstein replied. “Some day in the future, not all that far away, I’ll be the first one to fall. But I don’t want any of you to be afraid. I will come back. Like the seed, in the spring, I’ll spring into new life.”

He looked around at us as if this all should make perfect sense, then he grinned. “Just remember this. If things should ever look very bleak, if it should ever appear that all we’ve tried to do is in tatters and ruins, remember this. It may look as if all we’re doing here is giving away sunflower seeds and telling stories to the kids in the park. But we’re in a dangerous business here, most dangerous for me. If it ever all goes horribly wrong, just remember what I’ve told you. The seeds in the ground look dead to everyone but the farmer. They’ll bloom in the spring.”