The Hidden Seed

Ice crept up into her boots even as she walked, transforming her toiled sweat into a cacophony of crystal monsters nipping at her ankles. The world had changed so swiftly in Hester’s Freshman year of college when she arrived in Ohio a mere two years ago. She started as a youthful poppy in springtime and the earth had spurned her violently into everlasting winter, wilting her very being. She was one of the fortunate, however, she made it out alive with her skin, even if she couldn’t feel it through the cutting cold and ice.

“Not much further, keep digging gals.”

Hester perked up and strained her head as a swift gust tried to stall her efforts to find the Watch captains’s gaze. Out before her was a small group of what she termed “the leftovers”, young women left to cultivate the land and crops in this sudden and new environment they found themselves in. The rest of the survivors; the few elderly left, the very young, and the men, all stayed underground during all times, kept safe and warm in the bosom of the earth. The sturdier women of the group left daily to salvage something, anything, from this desolate wasteland of ice and snow. They were told it was because of their feminine life-giving gifts and nimbler feet, but, to Hester, it meant they were dispensable.

June locked eyes with Hester as the cracks of boots and shovels ceased and the faint hint of green encased in the cryptic ice peaked through ever-so-slightly. With a rough, shivering grasp, Hester scrambled into the earth below the tundra to shake the ice from the green. This was such an improvement in their findings from these past two years.

“Ok, you three, Hester, let’s take this back to the group. Let’s pray Jonny doesn’t throw a fit its only one.”

June was right, Jonny, their group “leader”, would always find something to blame on the girls. The blame especially fell on Hester and his patience with her was wearing thin, almost as thin as this shoddy plant that surly wouldn’t be able to grow or salvage their makeshift community. Still, this shriveled green mass was more than we had found before, progress.

The walk back to the bunker seemed to claw at Hesters patience, she was almost biting herself with anxiety about what Jonny might expect, she instinctively fell back behind the crowd, June trailed her knowingly.

“Hester, stay behind with me for a moment while the girls descend downstairs.”

The heavy iron door creaked, jagged ice scattered as it did every opening, and the girls careened down the dark stairs, closing the door with another reel leaving Hester and June in their wasteland.

“Jonny is pissed isn’t he June? He is always on my case, why ME, why does he seem to think I am not trying?”

“You know it’s because he kept you in the bunker because of your gardening experience. He didn’t do with you what he did with the others. Just lay low this time, don’t let him see you sweat. We’ve never been this close before. I just wanted to let you know I see you and hear you. We will get through this. Now, lets get this over with.” June, crunching towards the door gave a pained smile, it was as if her face was frozen in a sort of fear and she cracked her cheeks just to form something that wasn’t a frown.

“Hester, June, show me what you got!” They heard Jonny before they even managed to get down the steps and into the bunker, before they could even feel themselves beginning to thaw, before they could even knock the veritable abominable out of their boots.

Jonny’s face contorted in front of Hester’s eyes as she held out the sniveling green thing, the once glorious verdant visage with many siblings a cousins no doubt. “Our cans, rations, everything we’ve managed to save and pillage is next to nothing and THIS is what you bring me?!”, snatching the thing from her grip.

“Look around you, Hester, look at these children, look at your teammates, what are we to do?”

Hester started, “I..I know..I..I thought this was a nominal improvement? This means SOMETHING is bubbling under that surface, this means there is a possibility for food! There must be more sprouting.”

”Did you think of finding out for sure?”

Hester stared, unable to speak because he wasn’t really asking for her to answer’

“Then you know what, Hester, how about you go back out there and don’t come back until you can be sure? One less ration to be gobbled up by the ungrateful gardener, huh?” His face twisted with an honest rage, she could feel it boiling under his skin, she could almost see his sweat turn crimson.

She felt the grip of Jonny’s unfeeling hands, as she heard the fruitless lamentations of her bunker mates while she was hoisted up the steps and out the door in less time than she could gather her wits. The lock, he actually bolted the lock.

Stumbling forward in the snow she knew it was the end, the end of them all really. Wait, what if she went back to that green and budding space, could she salvage more, anything to convince Jonny?

Approaching the small patch she could tell there was something wrong in the air, her vision blurred in the storm kicking up, and Hester knew she needed to get to the ground quickly, if anything, for its warmth and the embankment the girls had made from their tireless digging.

Howling, like a giant blowing through the neck of a coke bottle, the wind cut into her, it felt as if it cut through her completely, and, she knew. This was it, she wasn’t just a leftover, she was left for dead.

As she was buffeted by the apocalyptic storm of ice and wind, she thought back to her happiest times, ones that had sealed her as a gardener, the summers with her grandparents and especially the summer before college…the summer before the end of the world.

‘The sun shone in her grandfathers hair, teased it with its fresh linen scented warmth, peaked out in golden beams between the silver strands, a priceless combination worth more to her than the real thing. Wrinkled hands and soft dirt covered Hester’s own with their life giving wisdom. How could she forget the locket? A beautiful golden heart from the very man who stole hers as a child, his gift to her as she embarked on what seemed like the start of a grand adventure as opposed to a grand nightmare.’

Hester, straining, clutched the locket, her last remaining piece of her old life before earth was scattered in darkness and bitter cold. She had never even thought to look in the locket in these two years it was in her care, not with the madness around her. Fumbling, with fingers that could scarcely be called such as frozen as they were, she knew this was the last thing she wanted to see. With a slight pop it opened, engraved was “To my little Poppy”, and, much to her surprise, out rolled a single seed, right into the budding earth next to Hester. With a moment filled with finality and struggle, Hester pushed the seed into Earth with her palm, laid down and gave the earth the last of her warmth for it’s new beginning, still clinging to the locket.