rebel daisy sits thoughtfully on a rock, composes himself, and begins to pen an angrily worded letter to the National Biscuit Company to… 

“Can we just say Nabisco?” rebel daisy stops me mid-sentence. “National Biscuit Company sounds so… highfalutin. Affected.” 

“Yeah, okay,” I say.

“And lose all the ‘sitting thoughtfully on a rock’ nonsense. What does that even mean?”

I sigh. “I’m trying to set the mood.”

“Well, it’s putting me in a bad mood. So if that’s the mood you’re trying to set, then well done.”

“Fine,” I roll my eyes. 

rebel daisy stands on a piece of paper and begins to pen an angrily worded letter to Nabisco. 

“Is that better?”

“Yes,” he says. “Carry on. I’m dying to hear what happens next.”

I stare at him for a moment – trying to remember what my life was like before this psychotic eight-inch tall flower sporting jeans and army boots marched into my consciousness. I wasn’t even doing drugs.

“Wow. Is that how you see me?” he says propping up his pen, leaning slightly into it, and staring up at me, blinking. “As a psychotic eight-inch tall flower?”

“If the army boot fits…,” I say.

“Ha! Clever,” he laughs, then scratches his pollen-speckled head with the sharp-tipped fronds of his leafy fingers. “It doesn’t lend much to the story though.”

“Can I just continue?” I ask, exasperated. “Please?” 

“Why are you asking me?” rebel daisy shrugs, carefully hoists the pen back up over his narrow shoulder, and begins writing his letter again. “I mean, you’re the author,” he says. “I’m just the talent. Though some might argue there’s no story without the talent,” he pauses. “Most would argue that, actually…”  

ANYHOW, rebel daisy is writing said letter to Nabisco because he is upset that they will not honor his request to make a special edition rebel daisy Oreo cookie. They were concerned that his plan for the cookie would be ‘too cost-prohibitive.’ Furthermore, it would ‘deny the laws of physics.’ In the schematic that rebel daisy sent, there is no actual cookie. It’s merely the white stuffing carved out into the shape of a daisy flower. His face is drawn in the center which is dyed yellow. 

“Seems completely feasible to me,” rebel daisy interrupts, dragging the pen across the paper. He’s just putting some flourish on the n in the word ‘moron.’ 

“Well, first of all, just the stuffing isn’t technically a cookie.”

rebel daisy looks over his shoulder at me. “I can’t be bothered with technicalities.”

“And,” I add, “you insisted that each so-called cookie have an operational mouth. I think that might be the bigger issue they’re logicistally struggling with.”

“I’m not willing to bend on that one,” he says, beginning to compose the word ‘genius.’ “It can’t possibly be that difficult.”

“Maybe not in your little buttery head,” I say, frustrated.

“I see no need to be diminutive,” he says, looking back over his shoulder at me. “Plus, it doesn’t become you.”

SO ANYWAYS, rebel daisy is penning this letter to Nabisco when his dear friend Sturmund Drang enters the room. 

“Hi Sturmund!” rebel daisy calls out.

“Greetings,” Sturmund responds in a weary voice that would indicate he carries the weight of the world. 

Sturmund is a small sunflower with a particularly dower disposition – which honors his family’s longstanding German heritage. His attire is a yellow raincoat with matching rain hat and rain boots. He carries an umbrella with him at all times because one can never be too prepared. When Sturmund sloshed into my consciousness about a year after rebel daisy did, I was tickled by his presence. 

“He was my friend first,” rebel daisy interrupts again. 

“Yes, he was,” I say to appease him.

“I’m standing right here.”

AT ANY RATE, when Sturmund introduced himself, I was taken by his name – immediately recognizing it as a merging of the words Sturm und Drang which was, as everyone knows, the late 18th-century literary and artistic movement in Germany influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and characterized by the expression of emotional unrest. 

“It was?” rebel daisy breaks in once again.

“Yep,” I respond, excitedly. “And I love the idea of a sunflower, an iconic symbol of warmth and brightness, having a name that translates to mean storm and stress. It’s wonderfully ironic!”

“Hmmmm,” he lays down his pen and stretches. “I just think it’s weird. Makes me wonder about his parents. But enough about Sturmund. Let’s get this story back on track and start focusing once again on my heroic efforts to be immortalized by Nabisco.”

“You really think heroic is the word?”

“Not enough?” rebel daisy ponders. “Magnanimous maybe?”

“I think magnanimous is accurate,” says Sturmund in a nasal voice. He blows his nose. “I can’t make any sense of why Nabisco would pass up this opportunity. It’s pure folly.”

“Right?” rebel daisy shouts, fired up now and rearin’ to get back to his letter writing. “Magnanimous it is then.”

rebel daisy sets the pen to paper, but then just stands there. “How do you spell it?” he asks sheepishly.

Sturmund shrugs. “I only know how to spell it in German.”

“German?” rebel daisy ponders again, placing his verdant hand to his yellow chin. “Hmmmmm. That could work. It appeals to my rebellious nature. Okay. Go ahead and spell it in German.”

At this point, I’m just standing off to the side and patiently, I might add, watching their antics. I no longer remember where I was going with this story anyhow.

“G-R-O-Eszett,” Sturmund begins.

“Wait,” rebel daisy stops. “What?”

“Eszett,” Sturmund repeats himself calmly then sniffles. 

“What the hell does that mean?!” rebel daisy, by contrast, hollers.

“It’s a letter in the German alphabet that looks like a B but sounds like an S. Eszett.”

“That’s ridiculous,” rebel daisy says, shaking his head and mumbling, “Germans,” under his breath.

Undeterred, Sturmund walks over to rebel daisy and extends his willowy dark green arms so that rebel daisy will hand him the pen. “Here. I’ll show you.” And he carefully writes out the word ‘Großmütig’. “That right there is German for magnanimous.”

“No,” rebel daisy responds.

“Yes,” Sturmund points. “That’s it.”

“No, I mean I don’t like it!” rebel daisy stomps his boot on the word. “It doesn’t look magnanimous at all!”

Sturmund stares down at the word but says nothing.

“Erase it immediately!” 

“I’ll do no such thing,” Sturmund says, stoic and indignant so as to, once again, not betray his German heritage. “Furthermore, I cannot erase pen ink.”

“I’ll tell you what you can erase,” rebel daisy shouts, his petals shaking. “Our friendship!” 

I’ve had enough. I begin to meagerly slink away and attempt to escape this flagrant display of floral decrepitude. I tiptoe to the kitchen to have an Oreo. A real one with actual cookies. And without an operational mouth. As it should be. 

“I heard that,” says rebel daisy. “Because I’m still right here.”

I close my eyes and sigh. “Yes,” I think, sinking my teeth into the cookie and the stuffing. “He’s always right here.”