Many fools sing ballads and do not wonder who put them in their heads. Once one sang a simple song, a pretty tune with plain words: “Come play along the precipice—don’t worry that the cliff is steep—the little flowers on the brink are daisies, but their roots grow deep.” I saw the daisies in the green grass—bright little things, and strangely appealing. They seemed to beg me to pluck them, their sunny faces hinting at a promise of carefree happiness. To my right and left, travelers left our narrow path. They hummed the fool’s song as they wandered ever closer to the flowers and the cliff. But in the hands of those who picked them, the deceitful blossoms never fulfilled their guarantee of satisfaction. One girl dangled her legs over the precipice and stared at her lapful of daisies—withered, twisted, and ugly. She had plucked each new one in vain, hoping for the promise that she never found. Near her, a man clung to the jagged rocks while reaching for an especially large and inviting flower. His foot slipped, but he could not hear my cries of warning, for those singing the fool’s melody drowned my voice. He finally grasped the daisy, and I saw his greedy grin turn to terrified realization of reality in the split-second before he plunged beyond the cliff into oblivion. When I wrenched away my stricken gaze, I saw that most of the flower-seekers had disappeared—but the song, which now sounded garishly cacophonous to my ears, had muted their last, despairing screams. As I finally turned my head away—setting my feet again to trod the rocky path—the familiar, mundane dirt seemed a welcome relief from the fascination of the flowers. I fixed my gaze once more toward the high hills ahead, but out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a leering, hate-filled face reflected in each of the daisies—a portrait of their planter. Still now and then when I glance by the wayside, I see the daisies growing along the precipice—an ever-beckoning, ghastly memorial to those pleasure-seekers persuaded too easily to love the worthless gaudiness of the deceiving flowers.