Every Spring the Flowers Bloom
by Andrew E. Love
[Editor’s Note: This piece is part of the “Topical” series, with each piece solely submitted to and chosen by the Final Reader Pietra Dunmore.]
The first anniversary was somber and wreathed, with classes canceled and ceremonies held. The second year, there was only a moment of silence. Students across the country were disappointed to have regular classes scheduled after the observation.
Fake threats were called in, resulting in scattered school cancellations, even in schools that received no threats. Charges were filed against anyone caught making a threat, but that just taught the others to be more careful. By the next year, fake threats weren’t needed. Students told their parents that there were rumors of trouble for that date, and let the parents take the necessary action. After all, there were always enough real incidents every year to keep the rumors plausible.
No one knows who started calling it “Flower Day” — but what started as a code word caught on fast, and soon replaced what earlier generations had called “senior skip day.” In a few years, every student simply knew that was the day they were supposed to be absent. Whether they had heard from older siblings or from other older students didn’t matter.
Some schools attempted to punish the absent, but punishing ten percent of the student body is difficult—and punishing fifty percent impossible. It was easier to just plan around it. By twenty years on, many of the teachers had grown up with the practice, and schools in every state closed on that day. As with every other holiday, it accreted traditions about how to prepare for it.
“My mom can’t believe how big a deal we make about Flower Day,” Janine said. She and Kemal were working together to place the decorations around the sign in front of their school. Scattered all around the school were other students decorating windows, benches, and the flagpole.
“What did they do when she was a kid?” Kemal asked.
“I think she was in college before it started. She was old when I was born. She said they called it ‘Columbine’ that first year but didn’t tell me much else about it. I don’t know why exactly. Me, I like it better with all sorts of flowers.”
Andrew E. Love, Jr. is an engineer and science fiction fan living in Maryland. He has one previous sale (“Does Earth have a Future?” in Daily Science Fiction) and enjoys giving talks about science at science fiction conventions.
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What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “Every Spring the Flowers Bloom”? In the early 2000s, I was thinking about how holidays have evolved over history, making the anniversary of an attempted terrorist attack into a day for children to set off fireworks and light bonfires (Guy Fawkes’ Day), and making the last day before religious fasting into an event that attracts Spring Breakers (Mardi Gras), and started to wonder what events of our times would be transformed in startling ways. This story, years later, is the result.
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