A Little Journey

Almost exactly in the middle of a great field of wild flowers, there lives an old and weather-worn oak tree. There is a great circle of empty space beneath this tree where the flowers refuse to grow. Wild flowers enjoy the sun too much to ever set root in the shade.

It is a little known fact, in the human world, that flowers are actually capable of intelligence. They do not have eyes or ears or mouths or, most importantly, brains and so it is assumed that they likewise do not have consciousness. This, as is often the case with assumptions, is a mistake. Flowers are, in fact, very much aware. Their awareness is just of a different nature to ours. They feel the vibrations of things. It is a simple little process but it works.

Despite this natural ability to absorb information, flowers, over the years, have managed to remain rather stupid; content to dance about in the breeze until the day they die. They have never sought to better themselves and it has never occurred to any one of them to actually do anything with their consciousness. It is perhaps for this reason that they have not made the evolutionary advances that other creatures have made. Instead, flowers have simply remained the same.

All hope for the advancement of flowers is not lost though. There are certain, scattered individuals among the species who display distinct signs of intelligence. Now, of course, this intelligence is only in comparison to other flowers. These “intelligent” flowers are still incredibly stupid, just not quite as much so as the rest of the plant population.

One might expect that these indications of intelligence would be observed in the larger or more spectacular of the flower species. Perhaps the Rafflesia arnoldii, or the Amorphophallus titanum. In actual fact, it seems to be the case that the more spectacular the flower, the more spectacularly stupid it can be observed to be. This is true for the more beautiful flower varieties as well. No, these advanced flowers, these evolutionary stepping stones, if you will, tend to be found amongst the simpler species. It is also important to note that this phenomenon only occurs in flowers, such as the Gerbera, that stand alone.

Which brings us back to that old oak. You see, lying just inside the shade of that old tree, ever so slightly removed from the rest of the flowers, was just one such evolutionarily advanced flower. This flower was not content to simply dance all day with the breeze as the other flowers did. It wanted to know why. Why should it dance? Why should it allow itself to be violated by bees? And why did the bees want to violate it in the first place? It had many such questions and it pondered many things. After a time, it began to feel superior to the flowers around it, the happy fools who were content to simply dance their lives away. It decided that it ought to have a name. Something to distinguish it from the idiots it was forced to live amongst. After a great deal of thought, it settled on Robert. This decision wasn’t based on gender. The flower was completely unaware of things like that. It just felt that Robert was an intelligent sounding name.

In actual fact, it was one of only two names that the flower knew. A married couple had come for a picnic one day and the flower had picked up their vibrations. They had referred to each other as Robert and Lucy. The flower had liked this idea of naming oneself but it felt that Lucy was a silly sounding name. Not at all the type of thing an intelligent being would call itself. Lucy, it decided, was a name for dancing fools. Robert, on the other hand, now that was a name for a flower of importance.

And so Robert the flower continued his life with many questions but never any answers. He grew resentful and unhappy. He felt that he hated the world. As his resentment grew, so did his distaste for dancing until eventually he came to a point where he simply refused to do it. While the other flowers played in the breeze, Robert would resist, standing straight and still. If he’d had any leaves at his disposal, he would have folded them across his stalk of a chest in defiance. Robert’s leaves were all far too close to the ground for that to be possible. And besides, he had a hard enough time simply resisting the breeze as it was.

Not too long after Robert began his stand of defiance, another couple came to picnic beneath the oak. It was only the second time in his life that Robert had been in the presence of human creatures. He stood, firm and rebellious as usual, and listened to the vibrations of their chatter. They talked of such wonderful things that if Robert could have cried he would have. He lamented his position in life. Why were these humans free to roam while he had to live out the rest of his life, stuck in a field full of idiots?

In the middle of his lamentations, Robert became aware that the human creatures had come over and were standing right above him. He went very still, feeling for their vibrations. They were talking about him. A ripple of pride and excitement stirred the tiny hairs on his stalk.

“Look at it, I told you, it’s not moving at all.”

The other one, the one who hadn’t spoken, bent down. He was surprised. There was nothing to keep the little flower from moving and yet there it stood, tall and proud apparently unaffected by the breeze. The same breeze that was causing all the surrounding flowers to sway and dance.

The human creature got very close to Robert and blew a hard stream of air at him. It took Robert by surprise but he still managed to hold himself still.

This seemed to excite the humans no end. Robert felt a surge of pride and he pulled himself up a little taller. Human creatures were interested in him. One of them hurried back over to where they’d been sitting and then returned with this thing that they had been eating out of (Robert knew what eating was. He had witnessed it before and had observed that it was a behavior common to all mobile creatures).

Robert was alarmed to find himself being dug up. His roots were carefully freed from the ground and then he was placed inside of the thing that the humans had. He wondered briefly if that meant they were planning on eating him but then found himself completely distracted by the exceedingly peculiar feeling of having his roots free of the ground. He felt weightless and disconnected. Soil was then piled in around him. It eased the strange feelings somewhat, but he still felt a strong sense of separation.

From that point on, there were too many vibrations for Robert to have a clear idea of what was going on. Imagine if you will, being surrounded by and dragged through television static. That was what the experience was like for him.

In reality, he was carried to a car and then driven, far from his home, into a big city. He was taken into a building. Inside, for the first time in his life. He was transferred into a proper pot, a lovely, roomy terracotta one. It was filled with beautiful soil and this amazing stuff that Robert found to be full of life-giving nutrients. Finally, he was placed in a window, high, high up in the building. It was heaven to him. He had been welcomed into the home of human creatures. Not only was it a great honour, it meant that a whole new world was opened up for him, a world of answers instead of just endless questions.

Robert was able to pick up the vibrations, not just of the humans’ conversation, but of this wondrous device called a television. He fell immediately and wholeheartedly in love with it. It was his teacher, his friend, his most trusted answerer of questions. It was also a giver of gifts, the greatest of which being music. The vibrations of it were pure pleasure for him and it quickly became his favorite thing in the world. His next favorite thing was learning. He learned of art, of nature, of flowers and of all the creatures of the earth. He learned about evolution. He was excited to discover that humans had once been quite stupid as well. It was apparently the introduction of meat to their diet that caused them to evolve into what they were. Robert wished he had a stomach and a digestive system. And a mouth, for that matter. He imagined great, carnivorous flowers rising up out of the ground and walking around like humans. He wondered how long it would take for flowers to evolve the kind of digestive system that could support the development of a brain.

Robert wanted very much to be like a human so it pleased him greatly that the majority of what he learned from the television was about them. In the beginning, he was able to block out all that was confusing and distasteful. He was in the first stages of his love affair with the human race and, just like any human in love, he ignored the bad stuff. But then, there was just so much of it that it became increasingly difficult to ignore.

He grew to hate the news. It was a hideous program and Robert wanted nothing to do with it. He didn’t want to know about all the terrible things that people were doing. He didn’t want to have to accept that these creatures he looked up to were not what he had thought them to be. But day after day, he absorbed the news and after a time, he was forced to accept the cruelty of this race that he had once so idolized.

Then he started to wonder why the humans insisted on parading the horrible things they did. It was only the bad things, all the worst events in the world that were gathered together and presented to everyone on the news. Did they enjoy it that much? Were they so proud of it all that they needed to make such a big thing out of it?

Wars, disasters, hunger, suffering and the destruction of the natural world. These were the things they proudly spoke of. The things they seemed to think of as achievements. And the shows they put on for entertainment weren’t much better. They were filled with the same sort of ugliness.

There were other things, beautiful things. Art and music and love and kindness. But Robert’s tiny flower consciousness simply became overwhelmed by all the more frightful things.

At first Robert had thought he was getting answers. In truth, he had been. But what he had discovered was that answers always lead to more questions. There was one in particular, one question that he desperately wanted to find peace on.

Why did humans cause so much destruction?

Try as he might, Robert couldn’t find a definite answer and he grew sadder and sadder with each passing day. Every time he thought he might have solved something, he always just ended up being faced with a new and more difficult question. Still, he just couldn’t let it be. The further he went though, the more depressing the answers became until finally, inevitably he came to ones he couldn’t answer at all. That destroyed him. He felt that there was nothing good in the world. Nothing pure. He lost his will to live.

Another little known fact about flowers is that they can live for a very long time. Far longer than humans, in fact. You see, since they don’t move or do anything at all really, all their energy goes simply into living. They have a limitless supply of nutrients which they absorb from their surroundings but all they need to do with them is just stay alive. So, providing they have adequate water, sunlight and nutrients and providing they aren’t picked or eaten by some animal, flowers can live remarkably long lives. The problem that occurs, especially around cities, is that the flowers become depressed and lose the will to live. If this happens to a flower, it will inevitably wilt and die unless it can regain its joie de vivre. This rarely ever happens because, being immobile, they do not have the ability to change their situation and so they remain depressed and they die.

Robert fell into just such a depression. Having lost his will to stay alive, he began to wilt and fade. His whole head drooped over giving him the rather pitiful appearance of a crippled old man. This did not go unnoticed by the humans who had adopted him. However, they had more pressing matters on their mind.

Robert observed, dully, that there was a change in the vibrations of the apartment. A great space seemed to be opening out around him. The apartment was being emptied. Many things, precious things, were thrown in what Robert, being the world-wise little plant that he was, knew was the garbage. He wondered if that would be his fate too. After all, what need did these humans have of a wilting, depressed flower? And besides, humans enjoyed inflicting pain, did they not?

When the day came that Robert finally felt himself lifted from his resting place, he was already completely resigned to the fact that he was about to be abandoned. He did not care, in fact, he almost welcomed it. Almost.

Robert, however, was not abandoned. Instead he was carried through intense vibrations again. They continued for what seemed like an eternity. When they stopped, Robert felt something surge through him that he hadn’t felt in a long time. There was sunlight. Real, unpolluted sunlight. It felt good on his weak, little body. He was filled with the most incredible vibrations. They were stronger and more pleasurable than even the greatest human music.

Then, the most miraculous feeling of all, his roots were freed from the confines of his pot. Oh the bliss of it. Freedom. He hadn’t realized how tight his prison had been. Then back into the ground. Cool earth nestled around him, embracing him. Earth, real earth. He was a part of the great, wide world again. He barely noticed the departure of the humans. He was buzzing. Alive again.

Robert had come very close to death and it took many weeks for his body to recover. But recover it did and Robert became a whole new flower. He still liked to ponder the great questions in life. But his journey into the human world had taught him to accept that his flower-logic was far too feeble and imperfect to ever really solve anything. So when he came upon questions that were beyond him, he didn’t get angry or depressed. Neither did he ignore them. Instead, he saw the beauty of their impossible complexity and, having appreciated them, he allowed them to leave him, to flow through him. As, indeed, he did with everything. He was content with his thoughts and with the beautiful warmth of the sun and the playfulness of the ever-present, effervescent breeze. He danced with the other flowers, happy in the knowledge that, while he may not have found enlightenment, he had at least found peace.

• Favorite
• Report Concern
• Share This
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Add your comment

You need to login or signup to add your comment to this work.

Tags:

enlightenment, flower, life, nature, peace, robert, short, story and tree