The Sunflower Pin

Every Friday during the summertime, I would sit on the pavement by the ice cream stand in town. My childhood friends would join me, and we would talk until the sun sank over the horizon and our hands were sticky from the forgotten treats. It’s always been our tradition, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

There wasn’t anything to do besides people-watch. Families would walk in and out of stores, chatting endlessly about their upcoming beach parties and wine tastings. Children ran to the ice cream stand, obsessing over the new toys their parents bought them for getting good grades. And everyone, and I mean everyone, would flock to the beach during golden hour.

On the last Friday of August, I saw something that I would never forget. I was waiting for my friends in my usual spot when I saw a mother and a son talking by the beach. The sun was in the middle of setting, the sky dappled with hues of rosy orange.

Fridays were busy down at the beach, so they barely looked out of the ordinary. The mother had a pink and yellow dress that billowed in the breeze, and her son was about elementary school age, sporting a white t-shirt with horizontal blue stripes. I looked away for a bit, but in my peripheral vision, I saw the mother bend down and slip something into her son’s shorts pocket. She cupped her hands on the little boy’s face, and kissed him on the head. At that moment, someone walked in front of me. When they passed, it was like the mother had disappeared into thin air. I may have blinked, but I couldn’t remember.

It was some time after when Cass and Aurelia joined me. Apparently I was so zoned out that they had to shake my shoulders to get me back to earth. Only then did I realize that I needed to stop thinking about how mothers can just disappear into thin air. But I couldn’t. Something about this situation didn’t feel…ordinary. She had to have been in the crowd somewhere close to the kid.

After explaining what I saw to my friends, they (although confused), decided to help me. The kid had noticed me looking at him in the crowd and waved. He seemed strangely happy to be forgotten. Or not. Maybe I was overreacting and she may have gone to get him something sweet.

I didn’t like the unease that pushed its way into my throat, so we went over to greet him. “Hi buddy! Did your mom go somewhere?” Cass asked, putting her hands on her knees to speak to him at eye level.

“No, she said that dad was coming here to get me. If I don’t see my dad, she told me to also maybe look at this pin,” the kid said matter-of-factly, pulling out a gold sunflower from his pocket.

Suddenly, it began to shine brighter and brighter, floating off the kid’s outstretched hand. Me, Cass, and Aurelia immediately stared at each other, mouths agape. That’s when I noticed that everyone around us had stopped moving. An old woman had paused mid-run after her hat was blown off in the wind. Next to her, a wailing baby stilled halfway in the air as his dad had thrown him upward. Shock gripped my system. Even the waves had taken a break from lapping on the shore. What in God’s green earth is happening right now?

The kid was jumping up and down, trying in vain to grab the sunflower pin. It had floated above all of our heads. I tentatively raised both my hands to touch my forehead, my ears, my t-shirt. I was still able to move, and by the looks of it, Cass and Aurelia were also in the same boat. From as far as the eye could see, everything and everyone was frozen except for the four of us.

“Kid, I don’t know what is going on, but I know that we need to get you to one of your parents,” I said, taking shallow breaths. It took everything in me to bite back a multitude of curses.

“Follow the pin guys!” The kid said excitedly. “That’s what my mom said, and I always listen to my mom!”

As if on cue, the pin started to fly towards the direction of the candy store. Aurelia let out an incredulous laugh. It had left a golden, string-like trail behind, making the kid squeal and laugh at the sight before running towards it. Before I could yell “watch out”, he had passed through a crowd of people like it was the easiest thing in the world.

I put my hands over my mouth. Not only did time freeze somehow, we could also go through other people’s bodies like they were never there to begin with. Great!

“Come on, we’re losing him!” Cass said urgently, grabbing my arm. She and Aurelia were looking at me expectantly. I nodded, running in front of them.

I tried to follow the pin’s trail as much as I could. Magic and time altering voodoo aside, I had still brought it upon myself to bring this kid home, no matter the cost.

We followed him to the candy store, where the pin immediately floated away from and into a small alley adjacent to it. As we got to the dead end, the pin began to expand into a mass of yellow light. The string-like trails it left behind were sucked back into it, weaving themselves into a narrow circle.

Suddenly, a vision of the countryside appeared in the circle’s center, except it seemed more dreamlike. The hills were strung with crops of light pink and yellow wheat, and the barns were made of white marble threaded with strings of silver and gold. The cows were munching on light orange hay, while the hens clucked songs of light purple and red. In the midst of this fantasy world was a man with his hand outstretched through the sphere. He had blonde hair and blue eyes, but what really gave him away was his smile, which echoed the kid’s in every single aspect. From what fantasy books I skimmed, I would say that this was a portal to another world.

“Daddy!” The child said, running into the sphere and greeting the man with a giant bear hug. “These girls were really nice to me, and I don’t want to forget them. Will I?”

The kid’s dad chuckled. “I’ll make sure you never will,” he said to him, mouthing the words “Thank you,” while the kid buried his face in his neck.

“You’re welcome,” I said back, and with that, the portal coiled itself into a ball of golden thread, flashing brilliantly before transforming back into the sunflower pin, clattering onto the ground.

I picked it up, admiring the details of the seeds, the petals, the leaves at the bottom. Aurelia took it, throwing it up into the air to see if it would start to fly again. Instead, it hit the ground again, bouncing as it slowed to a stop. “Guess that’s the end of that,” she said, grabbing it between her two fingers.

“Come on,” Cass ushered us toward the mouth of the alley. “Let’s not debrief in one of the sketchiest places over here.”

As soon as we came out and started walking down past the candy store, the world had started to move again. The people that the kid had walked through were happily talking amongst themselves, and the wind tickled the hair behind my ears.

Ever since that day, summer was never the same again.