Once upon a time, there was a land so rich and brimming with life it was almost too brilliant for the naked eye to behold its wonder.
But before that, existed a land with not much upon which to remark.
It was not displeasing, nor was it astounding. It just was.
In this land of unremarkability, through some form of natural magic, sprouted a seed. One seed amongst many other similar seeds. But from this seed, grew a plant. This plant seemed to have something about it, which set it apart from the others. Nestled in amongst a sea of unremarkable plants, grew this one. With a slightly iridescant sheen to its slightly brighter petals, it stood that ever so slightly taller above the rest. Standing above the other flowers, it was able to bathe in the full glory of the glorious golden sunshine which shone down upon all and any, indescriminently.
So after many years of glorious sunshine the flower grew taller and brighter than its fellows. Spreading its petals further and wider. As the seasons grew, as did the flower and as time came to pass, the flower passed its seeds and then finally, in a spectacular cloud of exhaulted colour, it too passed. But the seeds had been sown. Upon the wind they did carry and where they found root, they settled, producing finer, brighter, taller flowers than that from which they were spawned from.
As the years passed, this touch of brightness spread and grew through the lands of unremarkability, creating such diversity of colour. Natures creativity at its finest, spawning a vista of ambient ambivalence. The meadows grew rich in colour, each flower trying its best to reach for the sun and be the brightest most best it can be.
For a time the world had never looked so bright.
So pure and vibrant. What a wonderful place to be a buzzing bee.
And so it could have been for eternity. forever growing brighter, better, more beautiful. constantly trying to out-do itself with beauty.
But then along came Snafflebatch.
A creature of inquisitive nature, not from these lands, but from a realm far away. Reaching out for this floral beauty, his fingers stretched. It was not enough for these wonders to exist wild and carefree, but he must hold them in his hands. To feel them. To touch them. And so he did. But as he held these creations of wonder, for nothing but the purpose of admiring their very awe, they did but begin to wilt upon his palms. The vibrance exudes and iridescance eradicates slowly upon the breeze, as he tries to capture their beauty and admire it from up close as it retreats from existence.
These works of natural art he holds in his hands, begin to decay before his very weeping eyes. One petal browns, dries and falls from the decayed remenance which lays in his hands. Falling downwards, floating upon the air like a decaying feather, it swoops gracefullly towards the ground. This falling decaying petal brushes past a neighbouring flower on its downwards journey towards its ultimate resting place. As it eventually settles upon the floor, the petal gazes upwards, seeing the sun glinting through the petals of the flower it brushed past on its final descent. As glorious as this sight may seem, in the fading corona of the life giving sun, he see’s the slightest signs of decay in the petals that shield him from the sunlight.
The browness of dis-life began to spread through that first petal, through the whole flower and on into the next. Then without blinking, it has consumed a full bouquet of browness. The swaying of the wind brushes the newly browned petals against the pristine shining bright petals of the neighbouring flower and in the beat of a bumblebees wing, it too has turned brown.
In the swaying of the casual breeze, the simple jostling of leaves and petals quickly becomes fatal as the browning decaying disease spreads from one plant to the next, one flower to the next.
The intruding creature stands speechless as he watches a slow wave of decay spread forth from his feet in all directions. The colours fade and the vibrancy recedes. What has he done but pluck one flower? One shining example of perfection, from its subtle place amongst a field of colour. What harm could this have done? But somehow, some touch, has rippled amongst the stamen. disturbed the pollen and wilted those lifeforms he so admired.
What now can he do but witness this wave of death ripple forth and transform his landscape to one of indesirable blandness and lifefulessness. From his feet to the horizon, this wave spread in all directions, corrupting all in its path. What had he done? Why did he pick that first flower? What unknown contaminants had he carried uknowingly into this wonderous world? These questions paled into insignificance as he witnessed the mass wilting which now lay before him.
All the flowers dried up and died in an outward fashion, leaning out and away from him, almost as if they were somehow trying to escape his alien presence.
But as the sun slowly set over the hazy horizon, a silhouette was vaguely visible amongst the apogee of atrophy. A solitary silhouette stood upon the horizon. It was that of a flower. A simple flower. Swaying in the breeze. Its petals standing tall above the wilted souls of its fallen comrades.