Legacy of a Daisy

(Creative Writing class assignment that I wrote)

            Everybody used to say they wanted a “paperless society”.  How ironic that paper would one day fuel the world.  But then, once ninety percent of the planet’s oil supply went up in flames on the same day, suddenly the fuel source made from hyper-compressed recycled grass paper was no longer a joke.  My father went from being the laughing stock of the scientific community to the unsung hero of the Earth.  I miss him so much.  I almost wish he’d never invented it.

            I loaded another fist-sized green roll of “Geep”, Grass Powered Energy, into the side compartment of my hover bike.  Funny, a roll of green paper used to mean money.  This stuff is more like green gold.  It looked just like the old 35mm camera film that I’d seen at the Museum of Ancient History.  Dad took me there a month before the Fuel Fire of 2108 four years ago.  I was so in awe of how backwards the world was just a couple centuries before.  I had no idea that civilization could be torn down so fast, practically in the blink of an eye.  We were so dependent on oil.

            My 19-year-old brother, Trent, came out of the Commerce ripping a small brown bio energy food packet open with his teeth.  “You ready to go yet, Daisy?” he asked me.  Using his other hand he nudged me to take the cloth bag of supplies from him.  I tucked it into the cold storage compartment under my hover bike’s seat.  We made the trip from the New York City Relocation Center back to our home near Township Park in what used to be called Pennsylvania in just over an hour.  “It’ll be perfect,” Trent had said.  “There are plenty of ponds nearby and, if the aliens return to finish us off, we’ll be far enough from a population center to avoid the blasts.”  He still refused to believe that it was the Middle Eastern terrorists who had destroyed the world’s oil and its forward momentum.  My father had always humored my brother, so I did, too.  I was looking forward to starting over in the place I’d grown up, surrounded by the plants and trees my father, Dr. Malcolm Groen, had first taught me about which started a fire in me for his passion, botany.

            Tearing the boards off the kitchen window of my childhood home felt like tearing scabs off of barely-healed wounds.  My legs gave out as I staggered into the kitchen and I fell to my knees gasping for air that would not fill my lungs as memories overwhelmed me.  Hot tears stung my face.  I could clearly see the government soldiers dragging my father out the door as men in suits took every shred of paper out of our house trying to make sure they got all of my Dad’s notes and writings about his grass paper fuel invention.  They knew that whoever controlled the power would BE the power of the Earth.  My father’s last gift to me, a little solar-powered plastic daisy, sat in a beam of sunlight on the table.  I clenched my fists in sadness and anger.  Trent came into the kitchen to comfort me and accidentally knocked the toy off of the table.  The round base cracked open into two perfect halves when it hit the tile.  In shock, I reached in to gently remove the memory chip, shaped like a seed, which had been hidden inside.  I knew instantly what it was, a copy of his notes on how to make “Geep”.  His gift wasn’t just for me.  It was for the whole world.