Through his kitchen window Martin saw a girl, perhaps five years old, playing in the grass of the vacant lot adjacent to his own house. He did not recognize her. Must be new to the neighborhood, he thought. He left off his dish washing and went out to speak with her.

“What are you doing, then?” Martin kneeled a few feet from the girl.

She glanced up with an expression that seemed half irritation and half concern over his apparent lack of insight. “I’m popping dolls.”

“Popping dolls?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied with clipped certainty. She raised a dandelion she had plucked and said, “Uncle Jeffer.” She then puffed the seeds off the flower. Nodding curt satisfaction to herself she picked another.

Martin offered an observation. “Those look more like dandelions to me. Hardly dolls at all, I should think.”

She glared. “Dolls!” she announced. Then “Mum”. Another dandelion exploded, leaving about a third of the hairy white seeds attached to one side. Martin shook his head to clear away unbidden flashes of the old television footage of John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

The dead flower fell to the ground. It lay there unmoving on a mass grave of similar victims.

“I didn’t hear a pop,” Martin declared softly.

The girl stood and scrubbed her hands across her skirts, sending hundreds of tiny seeds into erratic declining orbits around her ankles. Stiffly she marched across the grass to another patch of the little stalks.

Martin moved closer to her and knelt again. “What’s your name?”

She chose a dandelion with a large head, ignoring him.

“My name is Martin. I live just up the street.” He pointed, but she did not look. “Has your family just moved in? You don’t seem familiar.”

“You are a stranger,” she announced. Before sending her new dandelion to the winds she whispered, “Daddy.”

Martin smiled. “Yup, I’m a stranger. Little girls really shouldn’t talk to strangers. That’s true.” Martin stood up, stretching. “Well, whatever your name is, welcome to the neighborhood. I can’t say the dandelions will much care for you, but you seem pleasant enough to me. Tell your parents that Martin Weiland down on Arrowcourt Lane hopes they enjoy living here.”

She was plucking a new flower as Martin turned away. He had taken only a couple steps when he heard the girl say his name.

“Martin Weiland,” she said in a manner that suggested answering a quiz more than addressing a person.

He turned to see the girl backlit by the afternoon sun, a cloud of downy motes dancing around her face.

***

That evening paramedics retrieved a stroke victim from a lawn as a matter of course. He was packed up, shipped to the morgue, and the proper notifications were made. Next day, when they discovered a girl whose entire family lay about their house like scattered seeds, he was entirely forgotten.