Log: Day 148 Sunny. Precipitation: 5%. Humidity: 45%. Wind: 8 mph.
You stretch your legs a little and tilt your body so Delilah’s slender leaves may bathe in the sunlight completely. AlphaPod and Binky have left already. It was nice to meet up and catch up. Your memories bring a small smiley face to your screen.
But you don’t want to leave again just yet. You watch the sun gilding the soft clouds in the sapphire sky and remember the first time you’ve been here.
Following the paper butterflies. Up. Up. All the way to this old skyscraper.
The butterflies are still here. The workshop table is still here. Like they were waiting for someone to return.
As the sky turns violet, a little head pokes out through the broken window: RoboCat.
“Samson! Are you coming back to the Greenhouse? Bluther’s back from the Repair Centre and he can FLY now! Can I fly? I want to fly! This building is very tall!”
You tell them that of course they can fly if they want to. They just need to pay the nice Valkyries a visit. Together, you head back to the Greenhouse.
You look back again, at the fluttering butterflies, aimless and beautiful, and take a picture. You will show this to Jeremy, you think. You don’t think you will get a response… but it would be nice.
Log: Day 365 Showers. Precipitation: 50%. Humidity: 89%. Wind: 12 mph.
It’s been a year since your Uplift. But more importantly, in some ways, it’s been a year since you first came to know Delilah.
“Humans celebrated their birthdays.” Grandfather Time tells you over tea. “Each year, they celebrated the day they were born on with families and friends. It was seen as a special occasion.”
He conjures up a cake as he says so, with lit candles on top. “Make a wish, Samson.”
It takes you some time to make an emoji that mimics blowing, but you get there at last. And as the tiny flames flicker and disappear, you realise you have forgotten to make a wish, so focused on getting the expression right.
Somehow, you don’t mind.
As the clock ticks on, you quietly wonder whether Delilah made her wish – and if she did, what it would be.
Log: Day 730 Cloudy. Precipitation: 20%. Humidity: 82%. Wind: 3 mph.
You send the bundle of photographs to AuShRef’s library.
A birthday gift, to yourself and Delilah, you think.
In this small digital bundle, there is the whole island. The myriad colours of the sky, clear or cloudy, in rain and snow. The first flowering of the glowing apple tree in the Greenhouse. The family picture where everyone posed before the mural. RoboCat chasing Sun around under the shade casted by Jeremy’s tree. Bluther back with the strange fish he found in the ocean. Biccy and Rusty’s home. The Ticker, endlessly ticking on, heartbeat of the island. FRIENDs, shielding everyone and everything from harm, the little wounds on their exposed wires. … You and Delilah, photographed by Synthesis Station, tiny figures on a massive island, backlit by the light of dawn.
Memories.
You send them to the library, like planting a pack of mysterious seeds. Who knows who will come across them in the far future, what they would think, what flowers will bloom and what fruit will they bear?
High above you, a white bird soars.
How beautiful it is to pass on each other’s tales, each other’s lived lives and wisdom and experience.
Log: Day 2952 Sunny. Precipitation: 10%. Humidity: 40%. Wind: 15 mph.
Since the day you were Uplifted, Delilah hasn’t flowered once. You can’t remember what her flowers would look like. In the eons you spend after these short few weeks of chaos at the greenhouse you’re gently surprised by her beautiful flowers, bright and yellow as they point towards the sun.
As they wilt, as all things do, you see it turning into something of a dry, puffball-like flower, transforming, little seeds poke out of its central core.
A dandelion.
You know what you must do.
The moment you find out, you race as quickly as you can up to the megastructure, climbing the many steps and traversing ledge after ledge. Bots on your way wonder where you’re going in such a hurry - you explain yourself and they let you hitch a ride, slowly but surely getting you to the top of the highest point in the city. You haven’t much time for such a delicate process.
Not a moment too soon as you reach the broken glass roof extending out into a helipad, that you feel the first seeds start to fall, you lift yourself as high as you can on your little legs, and let the wind catch Delilah’s precious end.
One by one, the little seeds with their own personal parasols, lacy and graceful, begin to float off the bulb at the end of Delilah’s stem and blow away in the wind, dispersing far and wide. You have no idea when you’ll have a chance like this again, and you want to make sure that Delilah and her children will get to travel as much as possible, with that diversity comes the best chance for survival after all.
You feel every microgram lifted off you as the seeds blow away, you have every instinct to reach out and catch them, keep them forever within your plot, but you know that’s not where they belong.
You have to let go, let go so that Delilah may bloom again, even if it may not be in your soul.
Log: Day 2954 Rain. Precipitation: 90%. Humidity: 95%. Wind: 9 mph.
Taking shelter underneath the half-crumbled ceiling, you take care not to let the fluffy white seeds get wet. You want them to fly far.
Far, far away. To places you have never been to, never even heard of.
Away.
As night falls, you dream of a form in the dark, young and old, a child and an old man. He wears a forlorn look as he gazes towards something you cannot see. As he speaks, you hear your own voice:
“You have made your mark, in the time you have had, and while I remain, I will remember - until I am lost too.”
Log: Day 2955 Partially sunny. Precipitation: 30%. Humidity: 50%. Wind: 7 mph.
It takes a few days for every seed to blow away, you wish each and every one of them a peaceful journey. By this time Delilah’s final leaves have yellowed, and her single stem wilted, having done its job. The last seedling, without enough momentum to fly, lands gently within your soil, next to its mother, her flesh and tears blessing it for the next cycle of life to begin.
Log: Day 100267 Sunny. Precipitation: some. Humidity: some. Wind: -
Delilah after Delilah passes by you until your legs seize up, when you feel dirt and grime and rust take over your chassis to the point it can no longer be repaired. Your mechanisms for heat and water are starting to fail, you can no longer keep plants in a livable condition, and your top has been bald for decades.
And yet you still return, going back to the one place, the Greenhouse where life remains exactly as you’ve always left it. It’s comforting.
You meander into the shed, slowly, your legs creaking under you.
With the last of your strength, you climb up onto the wooden table in the shed, surrounded by other nursery pots containing various stages of overgrown life. You settle down, moss rubbing up against you, soft sunlight streaming in from the blurry window.
You feel the moisture in the air.
Looks like it will rain soon.
That’s good, you think.
You count the sprouts that would spring up as the rain calls them from their sleep.
It’s relaxing…
Distantly, you start to hear the raindrops.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock…
You count the raindrops that would wake the life beneath the soft brown soil.
It’s peaceful…
So peaceful you could almost…
Just…
Fall asleep here
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