The Poppy

After writing Instinct Before Signal, I found myself unable to stop thinking about the red spot on the herring gull's beak.

Not because it attracts the chick.

Because of what it looks like.

The more I looked at it, the less it resembled a marker and the more it resembled an injury.

A raised red swelling.

An infection.

A wound.

The thought sat with me for days.

Then one morning a single red poppy appeared in the garden.

Not flowers.

One flower.

A red spot in a field of green.

The resemblance was immediate.

The same colours.

The same isolation.

The same interruption of an otherwise continuous surface.

The same demand for attention.

The red spot on the gull's beak attracts the chick.

The red spot in the grass attracts the bee.

Both looked like wounds to me.