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I am Lauren Groff and you are listening to Storybound. You're about to hear a story called Flower Hunters,

which you can find in my collection, Florida,

published by Riverhead Books.

Welcome to Storybound,

presented by Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate.

I'm your host, Jude Brewer.

Coming up in one minute, you will get to hear Lauren Groff read her story,

Flower Hunters, with an original score by Naomi La Violette.

Flower Hunters Flower Hunters It is Halloween, she'd almost forgotten.

At the corner, a man is putting sand and tea-like candles into white paper bags.

He will later return with a lighter, filling the dark neighborhood with a glowing grid for

the trick-or-treaters. She wonders if it's not hazardous to allow small, uncoordinated people

with polyester hams near so many flames.

All day today and yesterday, she has been reading the early naturalist William Bartram,

who traveled through Florida in 1774. Because of him, she forgot Halloween.

She's most definitely in love with that dead Quaker.

This is not to say that she is no longer in love with her husband.

She is, but after 16 years together, perhaps they have blurred at the edges of each other's

vision.

She says to her dog, who is beside her at the window watching the candleman,

one day you'll wake up and realize your favorite person has turned into a person-shaped cloud.

...