The Lilac People

by Milo Todd

Despite his careful planting, the asparagus made things look wild. Each crown grew at its own pace, but as soon as they started, they became eager. Some were still just baby stalks, poking out of the ground obscenely at first with their pale skins and distinctive heads. Others were already ferning, sprouting big and bushy far as they could reach. Some of the berries on the delicate fronds had already gone red as cherries and heavy with seed, others still green and new. By the end of the season, the ferns would be nearly as tall as him. An achievement for a plant, though perhaps less so for a fellow person. Spargelzeit was his favorite season. He loved how easily the beetle eggs fell off with a tender skim of his thumb, he loved parting the tickling fronds to check the crowns beneath, he loved the juicy snap when he broke off a ready and eager stalk. He always chewed a spear raw as he harvested the others, the pale skin tender and woody on his tongue. Some mornings sprouted so many spears that he could barely make it to town at a respectable hour, other times there were only a few to be had. He and Sofie simply split those while breakfasting. They were not worth the trip. Their crop was old, older than life, Opa had claimed, planted back when his own grandfather first bought the land. Long before this War, long before the one before that, long before the Treaty or the Inflation or the Crash or the Nazis or any of this. Long before Opa had been born, or Oma, or Bertie, or So...