Daisy Chain

By Mike Rivera

I had to leave work early. If I had stayed, I might have driven my fist through the computer monitor—or worse, through my boss’s nose. As I headed home, I noticed what a beautiful spring morning it was. I had forgotten what it was like to be out at this time of day. The air smelled just as I remembered from childhood. What was that smell? Sagebrush? Eucalyptus? I took a deep breath.
My old elementary school was just a couple of miles off the freeway, so on impulse, I took the exit.
Driving past the abandoned drive-in theater, I felt a twinge of nostalgia. Mom used to take my brother Mark and me there to see Disney movies. She always dressed us in pajamas because she knew we’d fall asleep on the way home. Now, the big outdoor screen was falling apart, its once-proud structure reduced to a crumbling relic. The enormous lot where cars once gathered was cracked and potholed, repurposed now as an outdoor flea market. My wife likes to go there and pick up “bargains”. I think it’s just a bunch of old junk.
I pulled into the school parking lot. The squat beige buildings were still there, now used as an adult education center. The asphalt play yard bore the faded white outlines of forgotten games. Then I saw them—the tiny white daisies dotting the grass playfield.
I remembered recess, sitting in the grass, weaving daisy chains with my friends. We would pick a daisy, push a thumbnail through the stem to make a small hole, then thread another daisy through it. Over and over, linking them together into delicate chains.
Without thinking, I sat down in the grass and started picking daisies, linking them just as I had all those years ago. A gentle breeze brushed my face, carrying that familiar scent again. Whatever it was, it smelled like home. I took another deep breath, lay back, and closed my eyes. The grass was cool and slightly damp from the rain a few days ago, but the sun warmed me just enough to make it perfect.
How had my life gotten so complicated? How had I filled it with so many things I didn’t enjoy? From the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed, it seemed like everything I did was for someone else—my boss, my wife, my kids, the house. I never did anything for myself anymore.
A loud bell jolted me awake.
I sat up in shock. That bell—it couldn’t be. But then I heard the rush of feet, laughter spilling across the playground. I blinked. Had they turned this place back into an elementary school?
I was still trying to process it when a kid came running straight toward me.
“Hey, Mike! How’d you get out here so fast?”
I froze. The voice. The face. It was Danny—my best friend from childhood. But that was impossible. Danny was dead. He had joined a gang in high school and was stabbed in a fight.
A surge of adrenaline shot through me. My heart pounded. I looked down at myself and nearly fainted. My hands were small. My body—pre-adolescent. The mole on my left forearm, the one I had removed years ago, was back, but it was small—just like when I was a kid.
“What the fuck?” I gasped. The voice that came out of me wasn’t my adult voice. It was the voice of a boy.
Danny stopped in his tracks. His face twisted in confusion. “What’s wrong, Mike?”
I felt dizzy and sat back down in the grass before I collapsed.
Danny crouched beside me. “Are you sick?”
I opened my mouth, but no words came out. My mind refused to make sense of what was happening.
Danny grabbed my arm and pulled me up. “I better take you to the nurse’s office. You don’t look so good.”
I let him pull me, my legs moving on autopilot. Kids ran and played all around us, their voices a chorus of youthful energy. They looked familiar, their clothes distinctly from the 1960s.
As we walked, another boy ran up to us.
“Hey, where are you guys going?”
Ray. My other best friend. We used to do everything together.
“I think Mike is sick,” Danny told him.
“Yeah, Mike, you don’t look so good.” Ray peered at me with concern.
I opened my mouth again—still nothing.
As we neared the nurse’s office, a memory hit me. I had always hated that nurse. She was a bitch who never seemed to like kids. Ha! Maybe she liked her job as much as I did!
“Hey, Danny,” I finally managed. “I don’t want to go to the nurse.”
Danny hesitated. “You sure? ‘Cause you really don’t look so good.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. Just give me a minute.”
I sat down on a green wooden bench in the breezeway. Danny just stared at me.
After a long silence, he sighed. “Well, I can’t stand here all day. I’m missing out on recess.”
“Okay,” I said.
Danny ran off toward the playground. I stared down at my hands. Small. Stubby fingers. I looked at my shoes—black tennis shoes with big white rubber toes.
The recess bell rang, signaling the end of playtime. As kids filed back into their classrooms, a teacher noticed me. Her expression was one of concern. She started walking toward me.
Panic gripped me. I didn’t want to try explaining anything—I wasn’t even sure I could—so I bolted.
I ran out of the school yard and across the street to the orange grove. I found a loose section of chain-link fence, pushed it open, and slipped inside. The scent of orange blossoms filled my nostrils. That was another smell that reminded me of home.
I sat beneath a tree, my back pressed against the rough bark, and I cried. The sobs that came from me were small, high-pitched—childlike. It was so strange, yet so familiar.
I stayed there for what felt like forever, trying to figure out what to do next. Should I go “home”? What would I even say? Hey, Mom, I’m actually a 42-year-old man trapped in my childhood body! Yeah, that would go over well.
The final school bell rang, and I peeked out from the grove. Kids were streaming out of the school. How was that possible? It was still only mid-morning. Maybe it was a short school day.
I spotted Danny and Ray and left the orange grove to meet them.
“Hey, Mike!” Danny called. “You weren’t in class. Did you go to the nurse’s office?”
“No.”
“Then where were you?”
“I, uh… I just hung out in the orange grove.”
“You played hooky?” Danny’s eyes widened.
“Yeah, I just didn’t feel like going back to class.”
A school bus rumbled past.
“There goes your bus home,” Ray pointed out. “How are you gonna get back?”
I remembered that Mom worked afternoons at this time when I was a kid. She wouldn’t be home anyway. Even if she was, I had no idea what I’d say to her.
“Danny, can I walk with you to your house?” I asked.
“Sure!”
We started walking. The silence stretched awkwardly.
After a while, Ray asked, “So what did you do in the orange grove all by yourself?”
I hesitated, then noticed Kyle’s house as we passed. Kyle was the “bad kid.” His parents did drugs. He once told me he’d stolen some Playboy magazines from his dad and hidden them in the grove.
“I, uh, looked at Playboys,” I blurted.
Both boys stopped dead in their tracks.
“You what?!”
“Playboys?!” Ray’s voice cracked.
“Yeah,” I said quickly. “Kyle hid them in the grove. I found them and started looking at them.”
Ray’s eyes lit up. “Let’s go back and find them again!”
Danny hesitated. “I can’t. My mom or stepdad will kill me if I’m late again.”
Ray groaned. “Your stepdad’s an asshole.”
“I know,” Danny said quietly.
We walked the rest of the way to Danny’s house in silence.
Danny’s house was a small, weathered wooden structure, set apart from the newer stucco homes where Ray and I lived. It had once been part of a farm, but now the land was just overgrown with tall grass.
As we stepped inside, Danny called out, “Mom, I’m home.”
No response.
The only person in the kitchen was his stepdad, slumped at the table in a dirty white tank top, a beer in his hand. He barely acknowledged us.
Danny hesitated.
“Good thing you got home, kid,” his stepdad muttered. “I was thinkin’ about getting out the strap.”
The air in the room felt heavy. I swallowed hard, feeling the tension between them, the same tension I had seen all those years ago but had been too young to fully understand.
Ray broke the silence. “Hey Danny, let’s go out back and see the rabbits.”
His stepdad waved a hand dismissively. “Yeah, go on. Your mother walked to the liquor store. I’m takin’ a nap.”
Danny’s backyard was different from ours. There were no toys, no patio furniture—just dirt, patches of tall grass. There were a few broken down hutches, some with of rabbits in them. I never really knew why they kept rabbits.
Ray opened a hutch and picked up a rabbit, stroking its fur absentmindedly. “We should figure out a way to make money, you know? So we can go to the movies, or the arcade and ride go-karts. Maybe we could fix up these hutches, get more rabbits, and sell ‘em.”
Danny and I just listened. Ray was always planning some scheme to make money.
After a while, Danny walked up to the house and peeked through the window. He came back quickly. “My stepdad’s asleep. You guys wanna walk to Old Man Page’s Market and get a soda?” He looked down. “I got some money.”
I don’t know why, but that hit me. I had never thought much about it as a kid, but now, seeing Danny offer up his own money when he had so little, it meant something.
“Sure,” I said. We started walking and, on impulse, I draped an arm over his shoulders. Something I never would have done at twelve. He really needed a hug, but twelve-year-old boys don’t hug each other.
As we walked, Ray started talking. “I heard Old Man Page shot a guy who tried to rob his store.”
Danny’s head snapped up. “Old Man Page? No way.”
“Yeah,” Ray said. “I guess some guy thought it’d be easy to knock over the old man’s store, but the old man pulled out a gun and shot him!”
Page’s Market was a relic from another time—just like the old man himself. His house sat behind the store, both buildings old and peeling, the paint worn away by years of neglect.
As we walked in, the old man shuffled up to the counter. He didn’t say anything—just stood there, waiting for us to pick something out.
I grabbed a pack of Smarties, the cheapest thing I could find. Danny got a soda from the fridge in the back and walked toward the counter.
“Aren’t you getting anything, Ray?” Danny asked.
“Nah, I’m good,” Ray said. He didn’t want to take Danny’s money either.
We left the store and started heading back.
Suddenly, Ray ran ahead of us, bent down, and grabbed something off the ground.
“Hey! It’s a twenty-dollar bill!”
Danny ran up to Ray and grabbed his hand, eyes wide. “Twenty bucks? You lucky dog!”
They stared at it for a moment, then Ray grinned. “Let’s go to the arcade and ride the go-karts!”
Without hesitation, we turned and ran toward town, laughing as the excitement built.
I couldn’t believe this was happening. Here I was, a kid again, racing toward an arcade to spend the afternoon with my best friends.
This had to be a dream.
But it felt real.
And dreams always feel real when you’re in them.
I decided I wouldn’t question it anymore. However long this lasted, I was going to enjoy it and I wasn’t going to waste it worrying.
At the arcade, we spent the next hour racing go-karts. The roar of the go-kart engines, the vibrating metal steering wheel under my hands, the rush of the blacktop under me—it was all so vivid. Danny’s kart was ahead of me, and I could smell half-burned gasoline fumes. The teenagers that worked on the track didn’t know how to keep them tuned. Danny kept looking back, swerving back and forth to block me from passing.
I could have passed him. I always beat him as a kid. But this time, I let him win.
Funny how, when you’re twelve, beating your friends at everything feels like the most important thing in the world. But now, I realized—this was what really mattered. These moments. The friends you have when you’re twelve years old.
Danny crossed the finish line and turned back to me, grinning like a maniac. “Loser!” he yelled, laughing in his best evil villain voice.
I just watched him, taking in his face. I missed him.
After the go-karts, we played pinball and skeeball, teasing each other mercilessly. We laughed so much I almost forgot I wasn’t supposed to be there.
I forgot that I was 42 years old.
That I had a job I hated.
That I had a mortgage I could barely afford.
That I had two kids—not much younger than Ray and Danny—whom I didn’t spend enough time with.
When the money was gone, we walked back to Danny’s house. The sun had started to dip in the sky.
Ray glanced at the streetlights. “I gotta get home before they come on,” he said.
I watched him walk away, knowing that in a few years, he’d move across the country and I’d never see him again. I heard he did well for himself—started a business renting heavy equipment. I hoped he was happy.
Danny and I walked up to his porch. As we neared the door, I heard shouting inside. His mother and stepdad were fighting again.
Danny sighed. “I gotta go in.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I know.”
But as he turned to go inside, I reached out and grabbed his arm.
“Danny,” I said, my throat tightening. “I’m sorry.”
He looked confused. “Sorry for what?”
I didn’t know how to answer.
I was sorry I hadn’t done more to save him. Sorry I hadn’t seen the warning signs. Sorry that, in just a few years, he would be dead.
I swallowed hard. “Listen… just don’t join any gangs, okay?”
Danny gave me a look like I had lost my mind. “Gangs? What are you talking about?”
I hesitated, then shook my head. “Nothing. Forget it.”
His brow furrowed. “You’re acting weird, man.”
“Just… don’t let your stepdad get to you. You’re better than he treats you, so fuck him, okay?”
Danny’s face softened. “Yeah, sure.” He shrugged. “I gotta go.”
He stepped inside and closed the door.
I stood there for a moment, the screen door resting on my back, listening to the muffled sounds of arguing. It must have been awful for Danny.
Then I turned and walked back toward the schoolyard. Somehow, I knew I couldn’t go home. I didn’t belong here, at least not forever.
I walked back into the empty schoolyard and sat down on the grass where this whole thing had begun. Somehow, I knew I had to get back to the same spot. It was as if I was following some kind of internal command. I sat there for a while staring at the buildings painted with the orange glow of a setting sun. Everything looked so new and fresh, unlike earlier. It was exactly how I remembered it as a kid. But this wasn’t going to last.
I sat there for a while thinking about the day: Ray’s face when he found the money, Danny’s laughter after winning the go-kart race, the way we all teased each other on the walk back to Danny’s house. I picked up the daisy chain I had left on the ground and squeezed my eyes shut, at the same time I squeezed the daisies in my hand. I didn’t want to let this time go.
The quiet breeze and the sweet smell of orange blossoms gave way to the sound of traffic and the smell of car exhaust. I opened my eyes and there was the school, looking older and more dilapidated. I looked around. The orange grove was gone. Now it was a tract of homes.
I looked down at my hands. They were older. I could see my left hand with its wedding ring, still clutching the daisies. I opened my hand and the daisies were still there. I dropped my face into my hands and started to cry again, this time the sobs of a grown man. I sat there crying, and each time I opened by eyes I half expected to see Danny and Ray coming toward me again, but they never did. They would never be here again.
I pulled myself together and walked back to the car. I turned the key, and the engine roared to life. On the drive home I thought about the time I had just spent with Ray and Danny. Maybe the best moments in life aren’t so much about what we achieve, but who we spend them with.
When I walked through the front door, my wife was washing dishes, “Another long day at work again?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“I got you something,” she said with a smile. “It’s in the bedroom. I know you’ve been stressed at work so I thought you could use a little cheering up.” I walked up to her and pulled her into a hug and gave her a long kiss on the forehead. She pulled back a little surprised. “Are you ok?” I nodded; my throat was too tight to speak. She melted back into my arms. “Well,” she said, “maybe after the kids are in bed, I can do even more to cheer you up.”
I stepped inside the bedroom and saw it on the wall—an old collage frame filled with pictures.
At the top left, a picture of us on our wedding day. Then a picture of our honeymoon. Then pictures of the birth of Breanna, our first, then Blake. The images flowed from left to right, top to bottom, a timeline of our life together.
And wrapped around the images on the frame was a chain of daisies.
At the bottom, the words:
“Links of Love Build a Life.”
A lump welled in my throat. I ran my fingers along the daisies. “Where did you get this?”
“I know, it’s old! But the kids picked it out for you this afternoon at the flea market. For some reason they insisted you’d like it. It’s the first day of spring break and they got out of school early so they went with me.” I turned to my wife, really seeing her. I thought about Danny, and I felt so lucky to have had my life, then and now.
“Are you sure you’re, OK?”
“Yeah, I am. I really am. I just needed this reminder.”