Fiction |
An Evolutionary Whimsy
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Once there was a planet covered entirely by pine trees. They weren’t actual pine trees, of course, but rather seven-foot tall, washed-out, scrubby-looking pine tree lookalikes. The only other plant life on the planet were scrub grass and, wedged into crevasses in the rocky hills, white and burgundy daisy-like flowers. There were no fish, birds, animals or humans.
The trees had possessed rudimentary individual awareness since their inception, since all living things do. But over time, when they bumped and fell into each other during storms and fires, their individual thoughts and feelings mingled and twisted together and eventually created an elementary but efficient web of communication. In that galaxy where the planet-of-almost-only-trees swam, there were free-moving beams of light that long ago had exploded out of stars and now streaked through space at near-light speed. One day, one of those light beams brushed close to the planet of trees and started angling around it. But a flash of light from the local sun pinged into it, deflected it and sent it plummeting downward toward the planet. In a grove of trees below, a blob of local sunlight had collected in a kind of light-well, and the light beam shot down into that “bowl” of sunlight. The light beam twisted and twirled in the trapped sunlight and, as it did, jagged streaks began to shoot through the mixture. As the celestial and extraterrestrial lights continued to mingle and merge, the streaks darkened, became more defined and the erratic movement appeared to take on purpose and form: a sketch of leg, a hint of arm; a dance. Then with a tremendous burst of energy, the light beam crashed through the side of the sun-shaft, blasted up and along the treetops and back out into space. As the light beam had skimmed across the trees, it had shaken them and singed their tops. After it was gone, the trees shuddered and shook even harder than before and, with stray bits of starlight now turning in their collective consciousness, began to thrash around with what almost seemed volition. Then one dark night, during a driving rainstorm, one tree swayed and tossed so wildly that it tore loose from the ground and toppled over. It lay inert for a while, then pulled upright and began to awkwardly pitch and stagger forward. Soon other trees began to move too, and quickly they all began to transform. They acquired a sickly green-gold color, lost most of their branches and developed sensing mechanisms approximating eyes; that is, they became “human.” Meanwhile, out in deep space, with the tree-residue from the trees on the planet clinging to and settling into it, the light beam acquired a greenish cast, grew limbs and, strangely, even began to crave companionship and so began to seek out other light beams to sparkle and twirl around with. |
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Finally, the plant-part of it began to ‘miss’ its home, the tree-planet. So the newly-formed humanoid rocketed back “home” and touched down on the side of a hill. Seeing nothing but daisies and apparently stationary trees, it quickly began lifting off again. But then the very first tree that had uprooted itself, now quasi-human, began ambling toward it. The light-beam “human” trudged toward its counterpart, they raised their limbs/arms in greeting and clasped hands. The light-human, with all its surging energy, was vaguely male and the tree-human, which possessed more contemplative qualities, was roughly female. So, attracted to each other without knowing why or what to do about it, they fumbled around, found or formulated “lips” and began to clumsily kiss. They felt the need to communicate too though, and soon were exchanging their highly unusual and remarkable life stories. Soon the sky crowded up with other light-humans. Having made contact with the original light beam, they had been transformed too and also “missed” the tree planet. Fortunately, there were just enough tree-humans on the planet to match the number of light-humans swarming in from space. Apparently, the universe has devised some very unique variations on ecological development. |
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About Charlene Anderson
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