Sunlight peeked over the horizon.
Elanora pushed the woven grass curtain back. No need to call Traden or Shadel from onvine chatting with distant friends. The weather forecast for today was bright sunshine for a full eight hours. She tapped her final vine mail of the night.
The vine quivered as the message shifted off to a distant cousin on the next island. An island far enough away, this cousin would reply before she went outside for her daily sunnap.
“Ready.” Shadel galloped up to Elanora. “Traden and I want to visit our friends. Can we sleep and absorb with them?”
Elanora patted the vine that connected them to all other living beings. Sprouts grew up so fast. Tiny seeds had sprouted into fast growing solar babies. No. Solar toddlers now. As the Earthmen would call them.
“Go on. The Earthmen will be here soon. I can still watch you.” Why did the Earthmen insist on visiting during napping and absorbing hours?
Shadel and Traden bounced off the various vines of their large tree covered home, and out into the sunlit valley. They wouldn’t go far. Sunlight would make them dozy, and their friends would meet them halfway.
Elanora moved a few vines that had grown more than usual the day before. It didn’t take much to keep their shaded area safe for working during the night.
She emerged into the open field. A nearby boulder was her favorite place to doze and absorb the sunlight. From there, she could listen to the whispering winds, and hear of storms before they arrived.
Shadel, a young tree, stood silently tall over the smaller Traden, a future flowering bush, next to the stream that ran through the valley. Soon, they would flower, and pass through the next phase of life. They might wilt, or merely doze, until the following spring.
Elanora yawned. The breeze stirred the leaflets on her arms. The bristles on them prickled of impending danger. She glanced around the clearing. No grazing animals.
Two humans, Jeremy and Egbern, approached.
She lowered the bristles on her leaves. Not much of a nap before they arrived. Elanora rattled herself awake. Maybe the Earthmen would fall asleep in the sun today. They had a few times during their visit. Five nap times interrupted. Too many interrupted naps would stunt the growth of Shadel and Traden.
“Hello Elanora,” Jeremy stopped beside her. “Do you mind if I sit beside you today?”
“I don’t. The grass will though.”
The man laughed. “Where would you recommend?”
“The boulder over there. No plants grow under, or around it.”
Egbern touched a nearby rose bush. “Do all plants here talk?”
“Of course. Don’t they on your planet?”
He pulled away. “Um. I don’t think so. If they do, I don’t know about it.”
That explained much. These bumbling men walked right across plants, and blocked vital sunlight from the smaller ones underneath as if they knew nothing of the living world.
She followed them over to the boulder.
A few blades of grass made room for her roots.
The men continued to talk and ask questions, while placing nonliving bits of former plants and animals in their mouths. As they did, she caught a whiff of a distant land that knew a different sun.
Ants crawled up Elanora’s stem, eating the mites that had crawled out from under the rock to clamber across her body. They’d get a little juice to sustain themselves, if they didn’t bite her.
Elanora listened to the men talk. Strange words that had no meaning on Solar. They had shown her pictures. Tables, knives, forks, spoons, pans, stoves, beds, and so many more that they had no need of. She couldn’t even fathom what purpose they served. She dozed.
“This sun is scorching me. Wish you had a building with air conditioning we could go into.” Jeremy covered his eyes.
“Why would you go inside? Then, the sun wouldn’t fill you with energy. You’d curl up and wilt away without sunlight.”
“Most people curl up to hide from the sun.” Jeremy covered his arm. “My skin is burning on this hot rock. I think I’ll go back to the ship.”
“Go ahead.” Egbern shifted to take up more space. “I’m okay here. For a few more minutes anyway.”
Jeremy stopped and lifted water out of the brook to his mouth. “Don’t be long.”
“I won’t.” Egbern waited until Jeremy was out of sight. “We aren’t all bad. Would you want to go to Earth with us?”
“I don’t want to leave my family behind. I couldn’t go without the sunlight during the journey. Without sunlight, I’d die. I doubt it would be a place I would be able to live. Not with buildings blocking the sunshine.”
“I understand. We’ll be going back in the morning. I think it would be best to treat this planet as uninhabitable by humans, don’t you?”
“What would humans do here?”
He leaned back and looked up at the sky with his eyes closed. “They’d come here and take out most of the plant life, and plant rows and rows of the same thing. They’d try to control the weather, and the animals. They wouldn’t hear the plants speaking. It wouldn’t be nice for you.”
“Doesn’t sound nice.” Elanora quivered. Here everyone was related. Even the animals, few as they were, lived as part of the community, with the plants.
“It’s too hot here for people to be happy. We’ll look for another planet to expand to.” Egbert pushed himself up. “Take care, and stay safe Elanora.”
She watched him trudge away. Before he was out of the clearing, she climbed upon the rock. The warmth seeped into her stem, and up to every leaf. They unfurled fully to reach for the life giving sunshine.
Gail Brown writes paired science fiction internal journey stories and novels full of hopes and dreams. She found science fiction brings hope and light through worlds of colorful dreams. It mirrors daily life as it could be. Perhaps should be, in some ways. Worlds where disability is accepted, and people live their lives without overwork and fear.
Academy of the Heart And Mind 