The Flowers of Life
Story
I found a world once where all the plant life appeared to be toxic. Although lush and green against the back drop of the orange sky no life could be seen on the ground apart from these plants. No life apart from these creatures, Flos elephantus, the flower elephant. I watched them move slowly across the landscape for a while moving their enormous bodies with long lumbering motions, they were like moving mountains. On closer inspection I could see these creatures were clearly centuries old judging by the plant life sprouting from their backs. But then it became clear, there were other creatures living on this planet, they all lived on the flos. Clearly the plant life that sprouted from them was edible to other creatures that resided on them. The Flos must have digested the toxins and somehow purified them, making the plant life on their backs safe to eat.
I was lucky enough to see two Flos meet once, they said hello to one another with giant bellowing calls that could be heard from miles around and when they finally met they greeted each other by touching the flowers that sprouted from their heads. They reminded me of that old Greek Myth, the story of Atlas, the titan who carried the weight of the world on his back, but happily in this case they didn’t seem to mind.
I found a world once where all the plant life appeared to be toxic. Although lush and green against the back drop of the orange sky no life could be seen on the ground apart from these plants. No life apart from these creatures, Flos elephantus, the flower elephant. I watched them move slowly across the landscape for a while moving their enormous bodies with long lumbering motions, they were like moving mountains. On closer inspection I could see these creatures were clearly centuries old judging by the plant life sprouting from their backs. But then it became clear, there were other creatures living on this planet, they all lived on the flos. Clearly the plant life that sprouted from them was edible to other creatures that resided on them. The Flos must have digested the toxins and somehow purified them, making the plant life on their backs safe to eat.
I was lucky enough to see two Flos meet once, they said hello to one another with giant bellowing calls that could be heard from miles around and when they finally met they greeted each other by touching the flowers that sprouted from their heads. They reminded me of that old Greek Myth, the story of Atlas, the titan who carried the weight of the world on his back, but happily in this case they didn’t seem to mind.
