Welcome to Gaia! ::

As Emry charged the cost of the two items to Isha's card, he silently wondered who Isha knew that was associated with magnolias. Whoever it was, Emry probably didn't know the person and mentally scolded himself for entertaining a notion that everyone vaguely associated with magnolias might have some sort of mystical relationship to each other. There was one thing he was particularly curious about, though.

"Flowers have meanings? You mentioned some of their associations with the gods. Is that what you're talking about?"

He walked the card and receipt back to their owner.

"Not my story so much, no. But I want to leave behind art which will inspire for generations and instill a mindset in those I'm near to be better stewards of the environment. I don't care if I'm forgotten, so long as I can make a difference. For example, I like antiques because they have history, yes, but they are also a sort of recycling. They're a way to cut back on what we take from our environment."

"So...people who know this language of the flowers could be interpreting, say, a painting of roses a completely different way than everyone else would?" It was certainly an idea that certainly fascinated Emry; he could find secret messages to send with his art. But he was also a little indignant at the idea of people reading the wrong message into his work.

He did remember an 'experiment' his kindergarten teacher had performed for her students with queen-anne's-lace and some dyed water. She had several glasses of colored water, each filled with a handfull of the lacy white flower. The flowers each changed to the color of the water they were in and each of the students was allowed to take one flower home to their parents. Emry was pretty sure that sort of thing was what Isha had meant when he was talking about the green carnations being dyed. He had some qualms about some ornamental horticulture, but that seemed innocent enough.

"Yeah, like penicillin. Though, some people can hurt the environment more than others. The people with more control, such as governments and large companies, have a greater level of influence. When Haiti gained its independence, for example, they deforested almost their entire half of the island. There is a coal mine beneath Centralia, Pennsylvania which has been burning since the sixties when the fire first broke out. A strip mine in Africa is so large that it has altered atmospheric conditions around it making it unsafe to fly helicopters and airplanes over it. Still, even one small act can cause a big problem as well. There used to be a flightless bird which only lived on this one island until a man introduced his pet cat to the island, which proceeded to kill every last one of the birds."

"It's not just one or two humans that are the real problem, though. It's entire cultures and civilizations that don't know when to stop. If Japan's whale hunting and consumption habits were limited to the communities that actually have a tradition in whaling, the whales might not be on the verge of extinction. But now the entire nation has claimed it as part of their culture and kills whales at a rate they never had before. The Earth can't spontaneously bring those island birds back, nor galapagos tortoises. If we can't find a way to stop killing the whales, neither will they. It's not that something can't take their place, it's that they will never exist again. In Haiti, it wasn't just trees that were lost. It was everything that lived in just those trees. The environment in Haiti is forever altered. New trees may grow back some day, but not the species that were destroyed."

"The body can heal itself from many bacteria, yes, but there are yet some bacteria that can kill it. Only a small bit of the botulism bacteria can be fatal."

Emry was ranting but he didn't care. The arrival of Isha's driver distracted him, though. He grabbed the vase first, as it was smaller and easier to handle alone. He would hand it off if anyone offered. The mirror, on the other hand, would best be handled by two.

That's right. Penicillin. Sometimes, though, it felt like penicillin wasn't going to be enough. That there weren't enough others out there trying to combat this disease....or maybe he was just alone. Then again, every analogy breaks down if you take it too literally. He allowed the subject to be dropped.

Nodding a greeting to Greg when introduced, Emry grabbed one end of the mirror.

"Don't worry about it. Helping to get the larger things into a truck is part of my job description. I hope you have someone to help you at home, though. I have to stay here and keep an eye on the store."

The mirror wasn't actually that heavy, but it was fairly awkward, especially in a store which was basically an obstacle course of fragile objects. The two of them, though, made it just fine. After the mirror was loaded and secured in the truck bed, Emry hopped off the truck and offered his hand to Isha to shake.

"Good luck with your project."

Then after a pause.

"I'm going work to hard to be the best penicillin I can be."

"See you later. I'll be in touch."

Even if he weren't planning to visit the kid's home soon, Emry was fairly certain he would see Isha again.

As he waved the exuberant young customer and his driver off, Emry felt a slight pang of regret that he would be leaving this planet as soon the Dark Moon Court's plans reached fruition. He would have to work harder, he decided, to fix what he could of society and the environment, even if that meant knocking a few heads together. He only hoped he had enough time to make sure he was leaving Earth a better place for kids like Isha.