Stan.

His father got him out of bed before dawn when he was eleven and took him up to a plot in flower. He put a bamboo sliver in his hand and taught him the whole motion, slowly: lift the rostellum, press the pollinium against the stigma, let go and move to the next one. Stan married fourteen flowers that morning and fell asleep sitting between two rows before nine. Eight years later he still starts at that hour, in the dark, waiting for the first flower of the day to open. Whoever goes fast clears his row before the heat sets in.

The beanie with the skull was embroidered by his sister, and he does not take it off: not in the steam of the scalding, not at midday in the drying yard. It is the first thing he puts on in the morning and the only thing he lends to nobody. The other thing he repeats the same way every day is tapping three times with his middle finger before he answers a question. He goes so fast that nobody manages to count it properly.