298 Fools Like Me

Boots on Earth 2.0's ground. I took a deep breath of this new world; all seemed well.

I missed green.

Hardwired into our DNA, green's electromagnetic frequency soothes the mind. I felt peace. As long as there was green, I'd be OK.

A more Earthly welcome couldn't have been, were it scripted and fed into some planet-making machine. As long as the trees were green, I'd be OK.

Of all the hues of green, one shade stood out as unknown to humans. Thus, I had the distinct honor of naming a color!

Remy. I named this unique tree's green "Remy-green."

The tree stood, branches akimbo, as if waiting impatiently. I imagined strange alien faces in the bark. A welcoming committee?

Then I heard them. I watched and listened. I saw things. Were lip-like bark slivers moving?

One of the Remy-green tree's akimbo branches extended, as if to wave me in. I got close enough to touch it but hesitated. Was this flora? Fauna? Something else? Something friendly?

Was it beckoning or warning me? Welcoming or condemning?

Extending a branch, it touched me! I heard every tree on the planet, the entire Earth 2.0 choir, singing heavenly in explosive arrays of electromagnetic vectors.

I needed not be anywhere else again. I was changing—being changed.

The next time explorers returned, there were five, armed with my notes, considered historical. Of these five, one had a personal stake in it: he was my son, Remy.

I loved Remy dearly, but still I needed be nowhere else.

When they found the same welcoming "trees," Remy was intrigued. Eyeing one particular tree of an eponymous shade of green, he answered his intuition.

"Dad?"

When the branch-touch connection happened again, a new evolution began. Evolution 2.0.

Remy embraced me: a spiritual biochemistry of preternatural fluids imbued within cellulose and fibers—and bark variations mimicking the faces of all visitors who had come before.

Remy and I felt every root, a networked euphoria of mycelial synergy.

Our epiphanies went far beyond the roots and synapsing consortia, to the very minerals that held the data of worlds and stars—born, universe-sown, and reborn. We partook in something Earth 1.0 never had.

We had peace on Earth.

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AUTHOR'S NOTES:

For Thursday, October 24, Day 298 of the 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge

366 WORDS (without A/N)

68 DAYS TO GO! THIS CHALLENGE BRANCHES ON, 366 LEAVES A DAY.

There are currently three chlorophyllic Vocal writers in this 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge:

• L.C. Schäfer (Perennial)

• Rachel Deeming (Annual)

• Gerard DiLeo (Weed)