Nature’s Boon (10) : Flowers are blooming at an incredible place across the city and sometimes barren patches of grass can be overrun with flowers overnight. There have been heavy showers and a high pollen count but there doesn’t appear to be any other explanation. It is not uncommon to find trees with nearly double the leaves they usually have, with vines twisting up houses, flowers covering the front yard, or local fruits to have doubled in size. This isn't the first time Destiny City has seen such oddities, and there doesn’t seem to be any negative effects to this; scientists are questioning climate change. Or is it radiation??
Cecelia has been in a bit of a rut lately. Since her internship ended, there hasn’t been much to do, or at least not much that she wants to do right now. She had been mostly laying on the couch, consuming media, for… How long? She took a moment and tried to remember when she had last left the house. “It can’t be more than a week” she thought to herself. She takes a little while, and realizes she doesn’t actually know. She grimaces. “Must mean that it’s been way too long.”
Sitting up and turning off the TV, she decides she has to get out. She starts going through a list in her head of her options. The thought of hanging out with friends sounded great, but everyone had a new job or had moved away after graduation over a month ago. She thought about going to the movies but since she hadn’t been working, no money.
Going through her hobbies; Woodcarving also costs money and baking wouldn’t take her out of the house. That left hiking.
She didn’t really feel like leaving the house, but knew deep down it would be better for her, so she forced herself to get up and go. She gets ready in a kind of haze, like she’s on autopilot. She was so focused on getting there that she wasn’t paying too much attention to her soundings. She was going to a place she new like the back of her hand, so it was pretty easy to be zoned out in auto pilot. From the vines growing into her car tires at her home or the flowers that had suddenly sprung up at the subway, it all went unnoticed. She’s just listening to her music as she makes her way to a wooded, mountain hiking trail that she goes to a lot. She didn’t even really register it when someone tied a star charm to her backpack.
As she approaches the start of the trail, she is finally pulled from her reverie by a thick vine across the path. Or more accurately, tripping over the vine and falling face first is what snaps her out of it. She manages to catch herself and starts to look around. At first she’s concerned that she has walked to the wrong place while not paying attention. Once she gets her bearings and recognizes where she is, she shrugs it off and starts the hike.
She plods along the path enjoying the fresh air, the green scenery, and the smell after a rain. She begins to feel better and more refreshed after a while. This frees up her mind a little which makes space to think about the changes around her. She starts to think how weird it is for the area to be so different so quickly. It couldn’t have been more than a month, maybe 2, since her last hike here.
In all the time she’s been coming here, there hasn’t been this drastic of a change so quickly, right? It feels so unusual to her, for plants to grow quickly, let alone this quickly. She wonders briefly if maybe there’s something in the rain.
As she finishes her hike and starts to head home, when she remembers something. She doesn’t usually come here at this time of year because her friends would always say it’s too hot. She smiles to herself, proud feeling like she solved the puzzle. By the time she got back, someone had cleaned up the vines at her home, so she went on for quite a while not realizing the broadness of the growth.
Word count: 604
