A weird thing happened to me at the airport once. I came up to security with my ticket and my bags and my stress, and they sent me through that scanner thingy, and I raised my hands like the little picture says, and then the lady on the other side said okay so I thought I was done, but when I stepped out of the scanner, they stopped me for another check. The agent patted my arms, my sides, my legs—then my hair. Without warning, or asking, just pressed her blue-gloved hands into my hair, and I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if she’d found the swallows roosting in there, the goldfish, the playing cards, the little toy dinosaurs, the daffodils and golden rings I keep tucked inside. What would she have done if the lions in my hair had taken a swipe at her with their massive claws, or the elk had reared up and butted her, or the zebras had kicked their hind legs into her chest? Would I have been detained if the swarm of wasps had escaped their hive, if the swirl of stars had filtered out and shimmered in TSA’s eyes? Whose insurance company would have been liable if the dragons had soared out of my hair and burned a swath of destruction across the terminal—it wouldn’t have been me who’d awakened them. I wasn’t the one prodding around in my hair with latex-covered fingers, dislodging butterflies and magpies, sending marigolds and shed fairy wings fluttering to the ground.

Fortunately, none of that happened. When the agent waved me on, I reached up and pulled out a thornless pink rose and placed it in the palm of her blue-gloved hand.