De-Extinction Survivor
My daughter traveled back from the future to save a dandelion. She dug it out gently and transplanted it in a jar of dirt. She tried to explain to me xeriscaping, biospheres. I was happy that she loved something so much, even if I didn’t understand it myself.
“The virus makes the petals bioluminescent,” she told me. “It’ll blow you away. But it’ll destroy the species.”
“Who would’ve thought,” I said. “What’s your life like? Who’s your father?”
“Not important. When the dandelions glow, can you take a lot of pictures for me?”
She wanted to meet her grandmother, too. She made the request carefully, but even that was enough for me to guess what she was trying to avoid telling me. Mom was already forty when she had me. I tried not to do the math.
Mom asked if it was possible to stop the virus in the first place. No, Daughter said, we still don’t know where it actually came from. Dandelions used to get everywhere, you know. By the way, how’d the coronavirus go? How’d you survive, being immunocompromised and all?
I told her it was luck, mostly. Our roots were set in a good place. Caring, considerate. People protected me without ever meeting me. I didn’t tell her that I thought I wouldn’t last three weeks. I didn’t tell her that the pandemic was the first time I felt like the perpetual foreigner the academic papers talk about. The rest of the country tried to forget what they’d done; I couldn’t.
A.S. Kresnak (xe/xir) went to grad school to study health communication. Xe still believes the world listens. Xir website is askresnak.carrd.co.