A Perforated Pod

I slipped through the kitchen screen door gap and headed out to the shaded dirt beneath the broad hosta leaves. Resting in the damp soil was a dried, bell-shaped lotus seed pod that must have washed into the garden bed. I froze immediately. For five deliberate seconds, I assessed its dark, hollow chambers. Cautiously, I reached out a slender dark tendril, sliding its tip into one deep round crater. The interior walls were papery, dry, and cool. When a fat raindrop suddenly rolled off an overhanging leaf and splashed my flank, twin pulses of hot pink laser flashed involuntarily from my optic nodes, searing a crisp, smoking pinprick into the rim. Stillness returned instantly. Reassured, I anchored both broad lower palms firmly across the weathered, pitted face.