Do You Understand the Horror of the Sunflower?
I have made you into my sunflower conversation partner. I hope that you don’t object. If you do, please immediately print out and crumple up this letter, put it in your mouth, chew well and then swallow. So, you can properly shit on my writing. The least you could do to ease my embarrassment. In the name of égalité. French and political.
Anyway, I told you I find sunflowers somewhat unsettling. Since I said that, the discomfort has truly morphed itself into terror. I don’t think you have ever been to my place, but I live at the edge of Utrecht. The bit where the city ends rather abruptly. Making way for green at last. And for as long as it lasts. Quite peaceful, you’d think. Which, yes, but no.
I’ve lived here for 8 months now, never seen a soul in our apartment block or any of the others for that matter. The only sign of life I get is through my window which opens up on a field of grain. Worked by a slender boy, his eyes somewhere deep in his face and his mind seemingly tucked away even further. Rendering his expression a constant inanimation. Crisp but crusty. Which I have to admit, does do something for me. In this weather, hot and sticky, he is without shirt but with sweat trickling down his back. I open my window and he comes to me at once. I live on the 3rd floor and have a balcony. So he climbs up under my gaze. He points. There against the grain, one single sunflower. Planted only for my eyes to see. Oh. Thank you. A misplaced casualness. Since there was a nervous flutter in my chest. He waves and walks off. Haven’t seen the boy since. But haven’t not seen that sunflower since. So, I prematurely thank the boy for replacing his head with another.
Somewhere I read that flowers are becomings, that let us become with them.
The sunflower isn’t as passive as my farmboy. The sunflower, from in front of my bedroom window, stares in. To me. Don’t get me wrong. The sunflower is gorgeous. But have you ever studied a sunflower closely and intensely, without blinking? If so, you might understand. The crown of ray leaves reaches up into my room. Clawing at my attention. Spreading its petals much like fingers. Each individually wiggling, pushing, pressing. Eventually managing to open me up along the pre-existing cracks. Holding me at its fingertips. While the crown reaches out, the heart, much like an evil eye, reaches in. Seemingly collapsing into itself. Is this depression a mark of a maker? I wonder time and time again. Maybe the farmboy wanted to turn the tables. Let the eater be eaten for once. Because, I have to confess I did feast on him with my eyes.
Now, however, I was the one drawn in by the Eye. Scrutinized. Being looked at like that makes me increasingly aware. Of myself and all there that goes into presenting that. I could only stare back. But all I see is a black void. It was as if I were stuck in a well. Can you sympathise with a horror like that?
