myth for needle palm

Legend has it that the land where the town lay was first a place of birds. This is why after so many alterations and disruptions, there still remained a few, holding to the land with their strong talons.

A long time ago the birds believed people would be beautiful and tell good stories. Birds love stories, that’s why you always hear them singing. The people of this place were made of the eggshells of those first birds, or so it was said. Everything had its time to break open, and to that end, all - from snowflake to mountain - was handled with care so that it might not break before its time.

Sweetie’s grandmother was always looking for the reason behind the tradition of passing knives down among the women in her family. She suspected it came from somewhere out in the world, somewhere within the very place they called home. But she couldn’t place it. She would run her fingers along the edges of plants or rocks, bones, or ice, even thorns with would bring only a point of blood. But none of them felt exactly like the knives she knew so well. Sweetie’s grandmother wanted to feel that blade with the good cut. She had to admit, the emmer was almost there, but it was too serrated on the edge.

The dead in the town were stuck, maybe they were not dead at all, but half alive and wandering. She saw them wait outside her house looking passively out at the river. In their lives they would have loved to have been this bored. But the look that they had was a tearing one. A body whose soul had been torn out. Mouth gaping, eyes wide and looking in fear. “What good are knives in a world where death is not sacred.” The grandmother asked herself. Rebecca had not come to visit in days. She knew Rebecca tended to much of the house weaving herself away from work on the fields. But three days was too long, she worried for the girl - and her bones felt empty, nearly cracking. She wanted to find Rebecca, to find food and water for her store was ran low.

The old house stood at the top of a hill. Sweetie’s grandmother hobbled up with great difficulty towards the back of the back of that wooden house. She did not know, then, that Rebecca did not live there anymore and the grasspeople had evicted her and were looking at wall paper samples and paint colors with their long serious faces riddled with fibers.

Sweetie's severed hands lay beside the crane orchids for nearly the entire year, and over time, the oozing hands made the flowers transform into three plumed yucca plants. She knew these were plants who were also birds, the old cleaners of the town when it was a place of birds. They knew that when something was too clean it was broken. They grew long lances at their bases and their tall necks stretched out. It was nearly dark when Sweetie’s grandmother found them. She watched the sun over the mountains and as she ran her finger along the spine she made a slit of blood on her papery skin. She pressed it against her shirt, astounded, the cut was right. These were the knives she was looking for. She harvested one as the sun stained the horizon and cold shut in and hobbled to the front of the house, leaning on the lance. “Rebecca!” her voice was shallow. She thought she would find Rebecca there, but another hand opened the door and a grass man stood before her. She surprised herself by not feeling fear at all.