Marigold Route

In Zapopan we no longer left our dead—or our rivers—alone. Rooftops wore solar gardens with graphene-printed nopal leaves, and the nights smelled like bread, bougainvillea, and warm data. I worked with Comadre, an AI raised on grandmother voices: we fed it sayings, recipes, and old letters until it learned to tell truths without cutting.

The drought had our throats in the red. Official maps swore nothing remained beneath the Atemajac’s bed; Comadre, stubborn, said: “Where the marigold wept, water still sings.” So on Día de Muertos we went out with a mesh of butterfly drones and a sack of photoluminescent petals—daylight stored like a promise.

We traced an orange path from Expiatorio to the dry channel, petal by petal, while the drones sowed henequén microfibers that harvest fog. Comadre murmured in my ear, aunt-warm: “Slow, mijo. Water doesn’t return when you shout.” At midnight the petals lit their own dawn. The air turned cool—the kind of chill that feels like a blessing.

Then it happened: under the crust of concrete, a fine vibration—like a pot about to sing. Sensors spiked, butterflies spiraled, and Comadre laughed, kitchen-bright: “I brought them their water.” It wasn’t a torrent; it was memory: a clear thread daring to repeat the city’s story.

By morning the river smelled like sweet bread and orange peel. Kids followed the marigold route as if it were treasure, and the señoras watered planters with a new patience. Comadre went quiet, then said: “Write the recipe: mix the dead, the flowers, and the barrio; let it rest under light; serve without fear.”

Since then, when people ask how we did it, I just lift a petal and say: we returned the verb to its riverbed. And the river—for the first time in years—answers: return.