Astrid Magnussen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
white_oleander) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomtownies2021-06-16 05:03 am
white_oleander) wrote in fandomtownies2021-06-16 05:03 am
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Covent Garden Flowers; Wednesday [06/16].
There was a large oleander blooming in the shop that Wednesday. Of course Astrid was going to take note.
What an interesting plant, that had managed to define so much of her life these last few years. You just had to roast a marshmallow on one twig and you were dead. Her mother had boiled pounds of it to make the brew of Barry Kolker’s death, and Astrid wondered why it had to be so poisonous. They could live through anything, they could stand heat, drought, neglect, and put out thousands of waxy blooms. So what did they need poison for? Couldn’t they just be bitter? They weren’t like rattlesnakes, they didn’t even eat what they killed. The way Ingrid boiled it down, distilled it, like her hatred. Maybe it was a poison in the soil, something about L.A., the hatred, the callousness, something no one wanted to think about, that the plant concentrated in its tissues. Maybe it wasn’t a source of poison, but just another victim.
Maybe it wasn't so strange that it had come to define her so much, after all.
Astrid would be painting oleanders again in her downtime. Maybe she should get another tattoo. Maybe she'd send one to her mother, or send several, dozens, to Susan D. Valeris, as if to remind them that while the oleander might be victims, Ingrid absolutely was not.
Covent Garden is open!
[[ and lifting a bit of text from Chapter 31 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch ]]
What an interesting plant, that had managed to define so much of her life these last few years. You just had to roast a marshmallow on one twig and you were dead. Her mother had boiled pounds of it to make the brew of Barry Kolker’s death, and Astrid wondered why it had to be so poisonous. They could live through anything, they could stand heat, drought, neglect, and put out thousands of waxy blooms. So what did they need poison for? Couldn’t they just be bitter? They weren’t like rattlesnakes, they didn’t even eat what they killed. The way Ingrid boiled it down, distilled it, like her hatred. Maybe it was a poison in the soil, something about L.A., the hatred, the callousness, something no one wanted to think about, that the plant concentrated in its tissues. Maybe it wasn’t a source of poison, but just another victim.
Maybe it wasn't so strange that it had come to define her so much, after all.
Astrid would be painting oleanders again in her downtime. Maybe she should get another tattoo. Maybe she'd send one to her mother, or send several, dozens, to Susan D. Valeris, as if to remind them that while the oleander might be victims, Ingrid absolutely was not.
Covent Garden is open!
[[ and lifting a bit of text from Chapter 31 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch ]]