Thistles

“I remember one thing that happened when he was a little boy. Talking about thistles brings it to mind. He was about five years old. ...[He] was hopping about in the dust like a sparrow, playing some kind of game, singing silly songs—you know the way children do. I was bored by the adults and so I watched him.

He spied a thistle plant blooming against the back wall of a house and went over to it, very interested, as if it were a rose of Sharon. He held the prickly bloom in his hand and stared at it. I wondered if he was addled in his wits, for everyone knows thistles and hates them, and I would guess that he had seen more than enough of them even at so young an age. But you would think he had never seen one before. For the longest time he stood very quietly without moving, holding it. It makes me wince just thinking about it. Then his mother noticed and put down her jug and went to him. I went too. He turned and showed her the blossom he held in his hand. There were drops of blood on his fingertips. She said something to him, and he let it go. She wiped his hand with her apron.

Then he did the strangest thing. He bent over and kissed the blossom, and that must have hurt him. When he straightened up he turned toward the wall of the synagogue, which is just down the street from the well. He bowed to it. Then he smiled. He had a nice smile. His eyes were nice too...”
~Michael O’Brien (from the novel Theophilos)

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