Environmental Romance Part Six

WARNING:  Don't even think about reading this installment

without reading installment numeros uno.  

dos,  tres,  cuatro y cinco

 A challenging intellectual piece of romantic literature

such as this will leave you hopelessly lost

without the proper framework.

Flora: An Environmental Love Story

By: Laraine F. Eddington

(Best read aloud with expression by candlelight)

Installment numero seis


A single tear glistened like a 5 carat brilliant cut cubic zironium in Conrad’s left eye. Flora leaned toward him as if to wipe it away and smelled piney woodsmoke, freshly forked hay, and a tinge of cinnamon swirled together with a musky smell that she recognized from observing many mating rituals among the forest creatures that had taught her the meaning of life.  Her hand faltered in the air and she pulled it back, self consciously tucking a golden tendril behind an ear.


“My twin brother was switched with one of the other twins.”  The words came spinning like little knives thrown by a ninja.

Flora felt a wound somewhere near her tender heart, a tiny tear in the silky cardio fabric that was but one element of her attractive innards. Her voice trembled with womanly empathy. “But that is horrible. How could that possibly have happened?”

He spoke without guile “Well, they are the Sightless Brotherhood of the Forest—every one of them is as blind as a bat.”

Flora coughed slightly as she bit back a lecture on the highly developed bat radar system. There would be time for that later. She felt Conrad’s warm breath tickle her cheek and a reciprocal thrill raced down her spine like the winning car at a pinewood derby. “When did your parent’s discover the mistake?”

The man’s voice was rugged but thoughtful; like clouds on the Rocky Mountains. “I guess they began to suspect something was wrong when Wendell had to have all those extra toes removed.”  

Conrad’s thick black brows knitted together at the painful memories and Flora thought I have never truly loved a unibrow…until now. A world was opening up to her, a world behind the magical forest that she hadn’t realized was just a big green prison that she had chosen to be incarcerated in without the possibility of parole… until today. Or was it yesterday? Flora had lost all track of time.


Conrad continued. “By the time we realized Wendell wasn’t really a Conrad…”


Flora interrupted in a firm but ladylike manner, “A Conrad, but I thought your name was Conrad.”


“It is.”


“No, I thought your first name was Conrad.”


“It is.”


“Your name is Conrad Conrad?”


And now it was Conrad’s cheeks that took on a reddened hue. He rose and as his mighty pectorals clenched involuntarily in embarrassment, a button popped off his flannel shirt, and zinged across the cozy cabin, hitting Flora in the eye.


“Oh, she cried, oh, oh, oh.”


And then she didn’t see anything.

To be continued...unless you're getting sick of it and want me to wrap it up quickly and have everyone die in a tornado.