I’m riding through space on my bike (as one does) when I see this enormous sunflower. Its crimson-dipped petals are wider than my body, its stem ten times longer than my bike. The sunflower shimmers golden, turning its head toward this system’s bright star.
I call my chrono-app into my vision. I’m not supposed to meet with my college advisor for another four hours. I’ve got time.
It’s me, so of course I’m going to pedal closer to the sunflower, this glimmering wonder.
My green polka-dotted shirt is tucked neatly into my jeans. My hair floats around my face. (I always forget to tie it back when I’m biking.) Dirt is crammed under my nails from working in the garden. (My friends say I’m obsessed with plants, but I’m totally not. They just don’t realize that plants are the best thing ever.)
Whenever I see a sunflower, I can’t help but think of the myth of Clytie. (I took a college course on Unfortunate Women in Greek Mythology.) It’s the sort of myth that pokes at my brain, one that’s never sat well with me. So what happens is that Helios breaks up with Clytie, and Clytie is so forlorn that she stares at the sun for nine days until she transforms into a sunflower. It’s a story about unrequited love, determination, and poor life choices.
I don’t have time to think more about Clytie, because I’m pedaling hard, and the enormous space sunflower is getting closer. The circle where its seeds should be is completely black, a maw framed by petals the color of flame.
I get too close, and then I am slipping through that seedless circle, gasping, cursing my curiosity, my insatiable desire to—
I’m riding through space on my bike (as one does), and I come across this enormous sunflower.
I’ve got to see what that’s all about.
I pull up my chrono-app. It’s thirty minutes later than I thought, but I have plenty of time to check out this weird space anomaly and still meet with my college advisor on time. The meeting’s not for three and a half hours.
It’s only a meeting that will determine my entire future. No big deal.
As I bike toward the sunflower, I think of Clytie. The most uncomfortable part of the myth, for me, is the bit about Leucothoe. So Helios falls in love with Leucothoe because he’s been cursed by Aphrodite (and that is a whole consent issue right there), but anyway, he and Leucothoe become lovers. Clytie blabs to Leucothoe’s dad about the whole thing, but it’s fine because the dad is super chill and reasonable about it, and he invites everyone over for brunch, because who doesn’t love brunch?
Just kidding.
The dad buries Leucothoe alive.
Then Helios comes by and turns her dead body into a frankincense tree, the most random of trees, because that’s super helpful.
What is it with women in Greek myth being turned into trees? It’s a whole thing.
I get so mad thinking about the Clytie myth that I don’t realize how close I am to the sunflower until suddenly I’m in this maw so black and cold and—
I’m riding through space on my bike (as one does), and I find this huge sunflower.
I pull up my chrono-app. Somehow, it’s an hour later than I thought. This happens to me all the time. When I bike through space, I get lost in how good it feels to pedal fast and hard into a darkness pricked by stars.
If I take a sunflower detour, I’ll still be able to make my meeting. I have three hours before I need to meet my college advisor.
I already know what my advisor will say. She’ll tell me that I’m on track to graduate with a degree in history, and then I can apply for law school.
My whole life, mapped out.
Sometimes I feel like the only freedom I get is when I’m riding my bike, feeling the vastness of the universe opening before me.
I bike toward the sunflower. The petals look like disembodied arms.
I wonder how Clytie felt as she turned into a sunflower, as her body became petals and seeds and stem, as soft places turned inward and hardened. Did it happen all at once? Or was it only that one moment the wisps of her hair grew golden and her toes elongated into roots, and slowly, slowly the rest came?
Did it hurt, when she changed?
As I’m sucked into the sunflower’s gentle vortex, I think, “At least she got to choose. At least she got to—“
I’m riding through space on my bike (as one does), and when I see this enormous sunflower, I have this strange sense of déjà vu.
I pull up my chrono-app and blink hard when I see the time. It’s later than I thought. I only have two and a half hours before I need to meet my college advisor, and I still have to bike there.
I might be late for my meeting (although not if I bike super fast). Unfortunately, that’s typical of my life. I’m late for everything—late to breakfast (mornings are not my thing), late to call my mom on Saturdays, and probably too late to change my major.
Botany isn’t a good major for future lawyers anyway. At least, that’s what my mom says.
That sunflower is really making me think of Clytie.
The weird thing about the Clytie myth is that she’s the one who turns herself into a sunflower. There isn’t some god snickering in the corner, dooming her to sunflower-ness forever. Aphrodite isn’t waiting in the wings to curse her with love.
Clytie does it all on her own.
I wonder what it would be like to have that level of determination about anything. That power. That ability to choose my own fate.
I imagine Clytie, staring up at the sun, her face etched in certainty.
Maybe she only wanted to have the power to write the ending to her own story.
As I bike closer to the sunflower, I’m filled with a sudden wariness. There’s something about it that isn’t right.
From reading all those books about plants, I know that sunflowers are made up of a ton of little flowers all masquerading as a single enormous one. All those petals on the outside are individual flowers, called ray flowers. I love knowing stuff like that. I love how when I look closer, the universe becomes so interesting, so much stranger and more complex than I ever could have imagined.
And I know that sunflowers are not supposed to have a weird bit in the middle that is a gaping blackness, a total freaking nightmarish unfathomable–
I’m riding through space on my bike (as one does) when I see this enormous, menacing sunflower. This thing is sinister, with its crimson-tipped petals.
So of course, I’m going to check it out.
I pull up my chrono-app and do a double take.
I’ll probably be late for my meeting. It’s in two hours. I should be upset, but I’m not. Does it really matter? Am I going to tell my advisor, my parents, that the only thing I want to do with my life is plunge my hands into the dirt and watch things grow?
In the original Clytie myth, she turns into a heliotrope, not a sunflower. The most common type of heliotrope has these bursts of purple flowers all crunched in together.
So how did we get from a heliotrope to a sunflower? That’s the way of myths, I guess. It’s what happens when stories are told and retold over so many centuries.
It’s funny how the same thing can repeat over and over again and still be slightly different each time.
I’m right up against the sunflower, and as I get sucked in, I think, “Hasn’t this already happ—“
I’m riding through space on my bike (as one does), when I see a freakishly large sunflower.
I don’t want to look at it. I want to keep riding. But something compels me toward it.
It feels like I’m in a pattern I can’t break out of.
Seeing the sunflower reminds me of Clytie. I’ve always wondered what that myth was really about. What is the lesson? The warning? What is this myth trying to tell me about life?
Maybe it’s about how if you turn toward something too many times, for too long, you lose yourself.
I’ve spent my whole life turning toward this one goal. I was going to go to law school. I was going to be a lawyer. It felt inevitable.
I never stopped to ask myself what I’d turn into if I stared straight at a sun that I never loved.
Because I spend so much time in the garden, I’ve seen a lot of sunflowers. It’s true that sunflowers are heliotropic when they’re young, always moving to face the sun, but once they get older, they stop. They don’t need to follow the sun anymore.
As I get closer to the sunflower, the blackness in the middle starts pulling me in. It’s a familiar tug. I take a deep breath and brush my hands along the soft edges, where all those flowers masquerading as petals sway.
I’m swallowed, bike and all, my fingers finally loosening their–
I’m riding through space on my bike (as one does), when I see a sunflower, which is weird, right? A sunflower in space? But I can barely pay attention to it because I am gripped by this certainty, this unstoppable wave.
I bring up my chrono-app. It’s way later than it should be. I only have an hour until my meeting, but if I rush, I can get there before it ends.
I start pedaling fast, faster than I ever have. I have to get to my meeting. From somewhere in me, I’ve finally found the courage to say what I need to say.
Seeing that weird space sunflower makes me think of Leucothoe (you know, the one who was buried alive and turned into a tree). If I were telling the story, things would have gone differently. Leucothoe would have escaped her bad family situation with her magical powers of being awesome. (It’s my version of the story; she can have cool powers if I give them to her.) Her skin glitters diamond-bright and she can ride on rainbows and she always knows when someone is telling the truth. She becomes a mathematician and spends her spare time playing board games like pesseia, because they had not yet invented Settlers of Catan. Maybe she ditches Helios and meets up with Clytie, and they become besties. Clytie doesn’t turn herself into a sunflower because she is too busy hanging out with Leucothoe and also pursuing her true passion, which is writing stories about women who are never turned into flowers or trees or anything like that.
As I pass the sunflower, I feel like I should say thank you, but I don’t know why.
Soon, I’m zooming through space, my shirt coming untucked as I bike faster than I ever have before, because I’ve never been more certain of the direction I’m facing, of what I’ll choose to become.
Beth Goder is an archivist and author. Over 40 of her short stories have appeared in venues such as Escape Pod, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Analog, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Flash Fiction Online, and Horton’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy. You can find her online at bethgoder.com.
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