Flower
I got a rash on my nose. I thought it was sunburn at first, but it’s not easy to tell — I’m still getting used to my new skin tone. When they said brown, I thought that would be great, a real improvement over the volunteers on the early trial with the green tint. It’s just… I’m pleased with the deep mahogany effect from the melanin-chlorophyll hybrid, but it’s so rich that I struggled to make out the detail of the faint red speckling on my nose. Even so, by the following day it was obviously a rash and not sunburn.
I went to see the doctor because that was the big thing they repeated over and over at the start of the project. This is an experiment. We’ve never done this before. We don’t know what the side-effects might be. Any odd health effects — see the project medic straight away.
“It’s a rash,” the doctor concluded after inspecting my nose. “Nothing to worry about. Come back in if it doesn’t clear up in a day or two.”
“You sure?” Because the human-shrub hybrid thing is literally only supposed to be skin deep, and a skin rash messing up my photosynthesis is worrying. There are all those rumours about fungal rust infections in the early trials, and the dreaded aphid-itch.
“Just a rash. Don’t worry about it.”
I wouldn’t have worried, but Luci looked at it come evening. “It’s getting lumpy… NO. Don’t pick at it.”
“It itches.” Which it didn’t do until she mentioned lumpy. “I just need to scratch… ow.”
She slapped my hand. “Go back to the doctor in the morning.”
No need to worry. Not really.
“That’s amazing,” the doctor told me. “I think it’s the start of inflorescence.”
“Sounds serious.” Like aphids.
“No, no, nothing to worry about.” The doctor smiled, which made me worry. “Your nose is starting to flower. It’s not a rash. I’m sure those are flower buds. It’s a bit unexpected, and early, really. I wouldn’t have expected it until late May — you haven’t been abroad, have you?”
“No.” Because they warned about that as well. The plant-human hybridisation is supposed to be optimised for a northern climate. I thought that just meant photosynthesis performance, not surprise growth.
“Good, good.” The doctor smiled. “Nothing to worry about, just a bit inconvenient. We might need to quarantine you, in case of un-planned cross-pollination.”
“Wait….” I finally figured it out. “You’re saying my nose is pregnant.”
“No, no, nothing like that. Or at least not until after your flowers open.”
My nose was itching all over again. “So, what do I do?”
“Nothing. Perhaps eat plenty of bananas, and milk, or just some mineral supplements. I’ll give you a list of things that are good to encourage flower formation.”
“What about things to stop flower formation? I really don’t want my nose to flower.”
“Um…” The doctor was puzzled, only seeing a fascinating scientific problem rather than me being stressed-out by an unsightly skin condition, and facing quarantine to prevent unwanted pollination. “I’ll take it up with rest of the team.”
Of course, when I got home, Luci had a completely different take.
“Did they say how big the flowers would be?” She did that head tilt that meant she was happy. Or laughing. It’s a bit of a multi-purpose gesture. “Did they say what colour? And will I be able to pick them?”
“Pick them?” As if that wasn’t going to hurt. “No way…”
“But it’s going to be so cute. We can go out. I’ll have some of your flowers in my hair. Yay…” She stroked my nose. “Does it still itch?”
“Yes.” No, but leave me alone anyway. “Maybe.” She knows when I’m lying. “Only a bit.”
Luci sighed. “When you see them next, ask about the colour. I was thinking about getting my hair done and I might as well coordinate.”
# # #
They called me two days later. Just come in… nothing to worry about. Seriously? The flower buds on my nose were getting bigger. It looked like I had a big scoop of curd cheese stuck to my hooter, but rigid blobs with quite a sharp tip to each one. It looked like I was going to have white flowers, but apparently the pigmentation can develop later in the process.
“Take a seat…” The doctor had company. I swear one of them was the guy who looks after the flower beds. “Any pain or itching?”
Not until I sat down and four people leant over me to stare. “No. It’s fine. My girlfriend just wanted to know — ”
“Yes, yes, don’t worry about it… coming along nicely… quite unexpected…”
Can I worry now? “Yes, but… what colour will they be?”
“Colour?” The doctor glanced at the gardener who, to be fair, had a skin tone that suggested a bit of melanin-chlorophyll. “Oh. Sorry. No, you’re not going to flower.” Another glance at the gardener. “Right, professor?”
“No.” The professor-gardener sighed. “Tubers. Definitely tubers.” He held up a hand-lens for a better look at my nose. “Probably a problem with the carbohydrate transport. Sugars were building up in your nose, so you’ve got storage tubers forming. I thought we’d filtered that out of the potato genes.” He gave the hand lens a casual wave. “Nothing to worry about really. We’ll keep you in the dark for a few days, try a few things to get the tubers to re-absorb. It’ll be fine.”
“But won’t it all start again?”
The professor-gardener shrugged that off. “We just need to block photosynthesis in your nose. We’re working on a sun-block cream for you. Now… do you have a rash anywhere else?”
“No.” Except…
About “Flower”
I wrote this for the #BlogBattle writing prompt in January 2018. The prompt was “Flower”.
My light-hearted monthly blog Writing On The Edge, is devoted to whatever entertained or annoyed me — usually the animals around the farm.
You can find some of my other stories here on Medium with Lore Fiction or check out my novels Hell of a Deal and Road To Hell on Amazon.
Mark Huntley-James
