Atomic Blossoms

Hello there. My name is Mel. I work at Kalek Grewth, a flower arrangement store. We grow our own flowers to make those arrangements extra special. At Kalek Grewth I work as a gardener, tending to all of our rare hybrids and such in indoor gardening houses. Lately though, business has been pretty slow due to the unsettling rumors, which you’ll find out about soon. Nowadays, barely any stores are open, just ours and a few others are open on what used to be a bustling town square. Now, it’s almost like a ghost town, except ours still has people in it.

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I wake up on a frigid day and get dressed up for work. I put on some black worn down boots, a gray long-sleeved shirt, a black coat on top ,some khakis, and one of those surgeon masks in case there’s something in the air. Lately everything’s been pretty bland, except for one thing of course: the rumors. I get out the door and start walking to Kalek Grewth, looking around at the barren trees, and feeling the wind gently flow by. Eventually I get to the entrance, opening the door to Kalek Grewth. I go inside and it’s clear that nobody’s really doing work, but everybody’s dead silent listening to the radio. The radio zrrrts and cuts out from time to time, but everyone can clearly hear the things that are being said. “Be in careful watch! There have been threats going around that there are atomic bombs that will drop around the country, watch the sky. Wear your masks! Zzzzrt.” buzzes the radio. Everyone is frightened, but dead silent in the room, even me.

Suddenly the boss, Mr. Farke, comes out of his office. “I know employees,” he said calmly, “I know there’s some unsettling stuff going on, but let’s continue work as normal alright?” Everyone agreed in some way and headed to work. I went to the indoor greenhouses and started tending to my portion of all of the flowers. Everything was pretty normal, just that there were worried murmurs about what was on the radio earlier.

After a few hours, I finally finish work and decide to head home. I’m still kind of nervous from that radio announcement earlier, but why should I worry if I haven’t seen anything in the sky? I get to the doorstep of my house, painted a tinted gray with accents of maroon for the slanted flat roof. Then, I see a dented package on my step. That’s odd, I think. I didn’t order anything. I pick up the package and it has a bold, menacing label on the top that says NUCLEAR RADIATION. Sounds so promising huh? I bring the package into my house. What the heck am I supposed to do with this?! I don’t want to be exposed to radiation! What’s even in here?! I ponder what's inside the box, I even shake the box. For some reason, the box was really light. I looked around the box to see if there was another label and I found FRAGILE.

That kind of helps..? It can’t be glass, it would’ve already broken when I shook the box.. But what would be fragile but not break from me just shaking it? I had a wild guess that came to mind. It could be a plant.

Then again though, how would a plant even survive in a box?! There’s no air holes, and it’s probably been uprooted from the ground.

Then I remembered that there’s a lab near my house. I don’t know what they specialize in, but I might as well see if they could open it in a way where the radiation wouldn’t be spread or somethin’. I walk a few blocks down the road and stop at the front of the gigantic lab with my package in hand. The lab is painted with a tinted white along with hints of mint and navy blue. I walk inside and immediately see people, hustling and bustling around. I look around and see someone at what seems like a front desk. I walk toward the desk and set the package down on the countertop. The person looks up from what they’re doing and greets me. “Ah! Hello there, what’dya need?” the woman asks. “I-I got this package in the mail and I was wondering if you would open it..” I say. The woman laughs and says, “Why do you want me to open it? I’m not a package opener!” Then I show her the label on the top of the box. “Oh, I see now.. Where’d you even get this package?” she asks. I shrug and say, “I found it on my doorstep is all.” The woman picks it up and motions me to follow her, so I do. We start going past many scientists scrambling with gigantic binders of papers, reports, samples, all of that. We go down a long corridor, which seems like lasts forever, and finally reach doors to a room that says AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. “I’m going to run some tests on whatever’s in here alright?” the woman says. I nod, and she heads into the room, closing the door behind her and turning on a light that says DO NOT ENTER WHEN LIGHT IS ON. I sat on a nearby bench and waited for the woman to come back out again.

Finally, after what seemed like hours (but was really only 30 minutes) she came back out. “Alright,” she starts, “so I opened the box, and it seems like it’s nothing harmless.” She opens the box for me to see, and to my surprise- It was a flower like my wild guess, and the flowers were blossoms: my favorite flower?! “It seems to be a purple flower grown with nuclear radiation.” she says. “Even though this would be very interesting to research,” the woman says, “we just don’t have anything here to take care of it.” She gives the box back to me and says goodbye and starts heading back to her front desk. I start my way out too, as there’s no more reason for me to stay. Eventually, I get out of the building, back into the cold, quiet day. Compared to inside the lab, outside was pretty desolate and lonely. Then an idea comes to mind. What if I showed this to Mr. Farke? He obviously wants the company to thrive.. This could be our chance to seize! We could, I don’t know, sell these flowers and get tons of dough for it! I start dashing for Kalek Grewth to convince Farke.

I get to the entrance and make sure the box is secure, I close the top just in case too. I walk in, and it’s a lot quieter than earlier. I make my way to my boss’s office and knock on the door. “Come in,” says a silvery voice. I open the door and see Mr. Farke sitting at his desk. I start walking toward him and look around his office a bit. The office is filled with disheveled books, paper, and such. “What do you need Mel?” Mr. Farke says as I get to his desk. “Well, I wanted to see if you’d be interested in this,” I open up the box, revealing the bold purple atomic blossoms. Mr. Farke looks closer and is in disbelief. “W-where did you get such a bold colored flower?!” he says. Then I told him the story, of how I found it and brought it to the lab. “So I was thinking,” I say, trying my best persuasive voice, “what if we plant these nuclear radiated flowers? We could have the boldest colored flowers and have more sales, come on it’d be great for Kalek Grewth! We could use nuclear radiation to OUR benefit!”

Mr. Farke gets up from his chair, and says very clearly, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s a good idea Mel.” “W-what? Why not?!” I reply back. “It’s too risky,” Mr. Farke says looking down at his papers, “we don’t know the long term effects of radiation, we don’t wanna lose anybody.” For some reason, I got really angry when he said this. I kept trying to convince him, but he wouldn’t budge. Finally, I decide to give up. I sigh and say, “Fine, I quit then.” “Wait, what?!” Mr. Farke says alarmed, “But why?!” Then I give him an answer, “I want to make this plan work, I wanted to help Kalek Grewth get back up on his feet with this new kind of flower and all- But I guess you don’t need it.” I walk out of his office and am out on my way to make my own dream come true.



A few months later...

I got a job at the lab, now I work doing x-rays and such. Now I do overnight shifts, but only so that I can work on my dream. First, I decided to try and plant the flower from that package I received long ago, to my surprise the flower hasn’t wilted and is still very much intact. Since I have my own small experimentation lab, I can do anything! I plant the purple blossoms into a small flowerbed measuring about 3 feet on each side. Then I started planting flowers around the purple blossoms, and what do you know- the flowers turn into beautiful, boldly colored versions. The best part about these flowers were that they were different- they didn’t need as much water and were bolder than regular flowers anyway. Then, I started my own small business selling these flowers. To my surprise, people did actually come to buy them! Well, for a short time anyway. Eventually, people found out I was using nuclear radiation for those flowers, and then I ran out of money and became ill. I could no longer work at the lab, and I’m probably dying. I guess my view of how nuclear radiation could change the world positively- especially for plants- came back to haunt me in the end.

Hey! Thanks for reading! I didn't really know how to go about this topic in particular, but I still had fun writing it lol. Hope you enjoyed!