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This Was the End
By
Tahlia Campbell
As I pushed my head up from beneath the soil, I felt the sun beating upon me, sun I was shocked to feel, my first question was where am I? The ground upon which I was living in was solid, it was dry and brittle, it was not what I was expecting. As time goes on I find myself making many friends, insects of all types, however, I seem to attract the bees the most. I could not smell anything but myself, I have a strong scent, a strong heavenly scent at that.
As time goes by I find parts of myself being picked and taken back into the house that sits across from me. I see the large animals I hear are called humans through the house. They seem to take a delight in smelling me, and then using my scent, which is also my flavour, to cook with. I hope I bring them joy. When the humans take parts of me I do not mind, I have a thick trunk, it’s long and gnarly, and from that I have hundreds upon thousands of flowers and thick leaves growing from arms all along. I find myself sprouting and spreading increasingly each day. When the wind blows my flowers fall and as they fall I sprinkle my seeds allowing my offspring to grow in the other beds in the vicinity.
I can grow to be broad and large-scale, however, I myself am not quite at that point yet. From where I sprout in my bed, I have a clear view of all that ascends around me, the chaos of the small humans, the fluffball I hear called dog seems to take delight in sniffing me and rolling around in my extensive branches, he sometimes leaves me bent and broken, but when the water sprinkles at nightfall I am able to repair myself. It is rather peculiar you see, sometimes I am only gifted water at dawn and nightfall, but on the rarest of occasions I find myself drowning in pools of water all around, I think this is what they call rain; we do not get it often but when we do I bask and flourish in the droplets.
One day I awoke to the sound of something I had never heard before, I did not know what was happening but the world I knew had descended into chaos around me. The trees larger than me were dropping to the ground. The delicate flower bushes around me were dropping to the floor, I could see everything dying around me. I felt my flowers and saporous leaves being pulled from my arms, I could not fathom what was happening to me, I thought my qualities too valuable to be taken away from my home, evidently I was wrong. These are my final moments, I know it. Just as this thought occurred to me I felt my bed being disrupted, the desiccated soil around me flying up. My roots were removed, as they were taken from the earth I felt my last breathes being taken. This was the end.