365tomorrows: A Flash of Science Fiction, Daily.

By: submission | February 7, 2026

Author: Hannah Olsson

My aunt ate our landscaping within a weekend, mere days after she found us.

Aunt only came to pound on our back porch decking whenever she distinguished the scalloped shape of our bodies against the Book Cliffs’ trellis.

This happens less and less each year.

After her arrival, my aunt occupied herself with the daffodils while we—grandmother, mother, and daughter—resumed the strange procedure of wringing hands that exists for childless homes filled with mothering daughters.

Before we could finish our consultation, my aunt pried open the sliding door. There was always something giving way, and this time I saw it in the tilted curl of her neck.

She called into the house, Sissy, Sissy, the flowers won’t survive. Sissy, there’s not enough water, out here. Aunt’s face always held the fresh-womb sheen of an awakening.

We made our decision swiftly—my mom peered at my grandma, my grandma smiled at Aunt—and the decision was made.

My mom followed my aunt into our garden. There’s a resilience to the split-cup variety, she explained. They return, year after year.

Aunt lowered herself to pinch a daffodil’s trumpet closed, twisting until it popped loose from its body. She shoved the silken flesh into her mouth and got to smacking.

Picaaaahh pica, Aunt said.

Slivers of yellow clung to her saliva. Aunt claimed to have a prophetic tongue. But the only thing she tasted was a familiar downfall.

There was nothing left to do, my mother said, but let her eat.

***

My grandma was easily entertained by Aunt’s progress on the daffodils: taking care of the filaments! Next up, the stalks!

When afternoons warmed, my mom propped grandma in a faded lawn chair so she was close enough to smell the tangy curds of gnawed-up tepals. Aunt was known to occasionally turn a yolk-cheek grandma’s way. This was a frame of company grandma admired. Family, after all, is a morbid craving, just as any other.

Aunt shoved root systems between her gums. Licked at remnants of Miracle Gro. By Sunday, she was finished. She sat in the empty soil and stared at the sun.

That night, I heard a resistant unfurling—a sweaty heaving of air. I tried to look out my bedroom window but my breath fogged up the glass, like an unconscious boundary.

***

By Monday morning, Aunt was fully rooted: her feet, lost in the soil, her mouth pulled upwards–bottom lip split at recognizably horrific angles. Her shiny forehead and cheeks curled into six, blood-crusted petals.

Sissy, Aunt’s anthers said, it’s dry out here.

My mom sighed, grabbed the watering can.

***

Droplets against her closed eyes, Aunt kept asking, can’t you hear what’s in my throat?

And my mom kept saying, I’m trying.