A Plant's Life 1 Darkness

Darkness, darkness was all around; feeling nothing but the cold loneliness. It had been so long from the last time that it felt anything; "Sir Jonathan North" it whispered this name many times, as the consciousness tired to remember the significance of it. Any sane person would have long been in despair but for some unknown cause, it was persistent on repeating this seemingly foreign name. As time pa.s.sed magic started to occur; bits and pieces of memories arose, it felt as if it was watching a movie rather than experiencing any of them itself; while persistently repeating the meaningless name, it started to watch. A small child with light brown hair, green eyes, and happy dementor was struggling to stand, with the encouragement of a nearby woman that looked like the mother; child succeeded and tried its first step towards the woman, with every wobbling step the cheers would be louder and the child would be closer to the goal. Just as he was about to reach the warm embrace, darkness crept up. Another scene started to play, an older version of the boy was sitting behind small desks with a small number of others of all ages, but he seemed to be the youngest; when an adult walked in the room, she started to talk without paying any attention to partic.i.p.ants.

"My name is Professor Angela Hopkins, this is your first day in a gifted school, I know some of you have been in school before, but they saw something very special in you and that is the reason you are here. Let's all get along and have a fantastic year" This would have been a heart-warming statement if Angela Hopkins was capable of smiling, alas a lifetime of cold behavior was difficult to be changed in an instant.

The boy saw a young girl of a few years older, starting to slowly and quietly cry in the corner but he hardly cared, he was far too young to understand other's emotions, so he turned around and paid undivided attention to the professor who was teaching advanced math. Darkness came accompanied by a new memory; standing on top of a hill a tall figure could be seen. Standing unmoving in heavy downfall of rain, as if nothing could move this strong mountain; if anyone looked closely at the face of this person they would be surprised; this was the young boy standing at the edge of an old grave with the name " Samantha North" engraved on tombstone, in the boys unyielding eyes a flash of grief pa.s.sed, so fast it would have been impossible to catch. No bystander could imagine any relation between the young man and two graves in front of him. There came a sudden flashback in darkness, a teenager was in a closed room working very hard on some papers he suddenly looked at the only picture frame on his desk. Slowly picking it up he felt indifferent towards the man and woman portrayed in the frame; the man had been gone for too long and woman, obsessively cared for the young boys work, so much so that she forbade him from home visits since the start of the program. The teenager did something irrational and gave into rebellious emotions, he threw the picture in the trash. At that moment the darkness felt colder than ever, the specter could suddenly connect to the boy and understand his feelings as if he was experiencing them. However, a new flash interrupted his train of thoughts. A handsome young man was standing on a podium, receiving a gold award with some polite cheers of peers. The same scene happened a few more times then a sudden shock to his heart came, there was a very beautiful young girl standing at the back, a hard to grasp light flashed in his eyes. The girl was standing beside some older ladies and an old man, it was hard to discern who accompanied such a beauty to a scientific event. After the ceremony, the young man politely nodded at compliments and slowly made his way towards the back where he last saw the beauty and her unlikely companions. Once he saw that they were all there, he looks towards them and with an agonizing heart, asking only a word

"Why?"

While the surrounding people were confused from such question, the old man was fl.u.s.tered and tries to respond but no reply left his mouth. If anyone looked at their faces more closely, they had a very close resemblance, as they could even be father and son. After not receiving a proper reply for some time; the young man turned around and quickly left the banquet hall, leaving the old man standing there. The consciousness watching all of this abruptly remembers the circ.u.mstances around the boy, a runaway father at a very young age, a mother who obsessively cares about her son's achievements, so much so that, hides her cancer not to distract the boy and writes a letter to be handed after he completed his research; the boy receives an award for his research, accompanied by a small letter stating:

"Son

I've known about this cancer for some time; since I did not want to distract you, I didn't mention it. You must make something out of yourself and live for both of us.

As my final hour gets closer I keep remembering our happy times and everything I wanted to tell you since then, but since I don't know how to properly express myself, I'll tell you this: I have always been proud of you and all you have done, and will forever love you.

If you want to find me come to the old cemetery, I'm going to be next to my father.

With more love than words can express

Mom"

And a small tear stain was making the word Mom hard to read, the boy was shocked; he had never seen his mother cry, not even when her father died, her husband left or during many hards.h.i.+ps in their life.

As the shock of this news drove the young boy towards more achievements, his heart turned colder by every pa.s.sing day; after some time, he could no longer remember the reason behind his hard work. The last time he visited her grave, there was no more feeling in his heart.

Before the consciousness could interpret more of this man's life, another scene started:

The now middle-aged man was looking at a big wall full of calculations with frustration.

He could not figure out what the missing part was, and that was driving him crazy; the latest project had the goal of eliminating world hunger, the man simply had magical hands when there was a need to modify plants. However, this seed refused to be tamed. Investors and his peers were getting restless, while there were some small results, the final product had not become stable enough to finalize the seed. He came to his old conclusion; there is a need for the environment to go out of control first, then there would be a small window of opportunity to fix everything and the seed would stabilize. This highly illegal action would have to be performed by himself alone. Late at Christmas night, instead of going home to his family, the man broke into his lab.

While adjusting the radiation controllers, he sharpened his resolve and then changed all the controllers toward danger signs. If there was someone present, they could see some tools out of Sci-fi movies shooting radiations with different beautiful colors toward a seed kept in a special container.

After calculating the odds of this action, the conclusion was simple

70% success

20% seed's death

9% seed getting out of control then, death of the seed

0.99% losing the power of the city and seed's death

0.01% a ma.s.sive explosion

As Murphy's law states: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong". So, when the man saw signs of collapse, he was not entirely shocked.

At the happiest time of the year, the night before Christmas, when all the city was bright from colorful decorations; stood a tall tower with no decoration as it was a protected government building. The office and laboratory of a world-cla.s.s genius "Sir Jonathan North".

At a late hour of the night came a very loud sound accompanied with beautiful lights akin to fireworks; followed by the stressful sound of sirens that were rus.h.i.+ng towards to salvage the remains.

That night will forever be a page in history books, t.i.tled:

"Sir Jonathan North

Jonathan North and very steamed and pioneer biochemical engineer, he was the top of the field with many awards to show for; such as Wolf prize in agriculture, n.o.bel in chemistry, Crofford prize for bioscience. Due to his meritorious service to the crown was named knight by Her Majesty the queen. His latest research was purposed to end the world hunger, by designing a persistent plant that could grow fast under any condition, while providing all the needed nutrients. While trying to correct the excess intake of the energy from surrounding by this seed, a catastrophe occurred, and the lab exploded. North has been named the father of biochemistry."

Many years later kids of all ages would criticize the need to memorize and learn about the history of the man but that is another story altogether!

With the shock of remembering the explosion, the consciousness shook and all the memories came surging back, and for the first time since he awoke at first, Sir Jonathan North was not being repeated on a loop. From the excess of information, the consciousness faded, after some time it came back, stronger than ever and shouted: "I am Sir Jonathan North"

And for the first time in his life, he cursed out loud!

"I AM JOHNATHAN f.u.c.kING NORTH"