What is Bioflash?

Bioflash is short short fiction, usually with a biological slant and never more than one hundred words.  For me, this is also an exercise in brevity and assertion.  A new bioflash will be added every week for a year.  Enjoy!

“The Cherry Tree”

In a quiet valley shunned by a forest of skyscrapers, a cherry tree unfurled an embryonic bud into an exquisite flower.  Sweet perfume seduced a butterfly to pass pollen to its delicate pink petals.  After this biological miracle an egg grew into a seed with a delicious blood-red fruit.  Ready to be dispersed, the plump cherry was picked by a slim human, then eaten by another in a distant country.  The human spat out the pit, which came to lie dormant in a landfill. 

And so, in that quiet valley, the petals of the cherry tree withered and fell.

“Quiet Crystals”

On a cold winter day, frozen clouds burst above the restless city.  Leafless trees gathered an icy fur, and everything went sinuous and still under the white carpet.  The roads became pathways for sleds, the golf course hills toboggan runs.  Trapped inside, adults sighed at the traffic nuisance, then smiled when the children merrily sculpted angels and men from the snow.

The next day the sun shone a little brighter behind the clouds, and the countless ice crystals thawed.  The trees went bare, the jagged protrusions of the land resurfaced, and all that was still melted into pools of memory.

“Living Exhibit”

From within the glass dome, Wilson crouched and watched a playful otter dive down and pound the glass with tiny hands.  A family of sea turtles stared stoically at him, and a pod of dolphins clicked and gawked, willing him to move.  He stayed still.  If he stirred, the spectators would make more noise and draw others.

A vague memory of running free rose in his mind.  Wilson hid his face and cried.  When the visitors left, he rose shakily to his feet and paced up and down his glass cage, never able to find escape from his restlessness. 

“Research”

The largest university lab rat—Earl, as designated by the sign on the cage—spent his days doing rat things.  He ran heartily on his wheel, tail upraised as though being chased by a voracious feline.  He built cosy, meticulous nests from shavings, pink nose twitching when grad students cleaned them out. 

One day, put in another cage with metal clamps, Earl was made to inhale smoke.  Day after day, trapped in his new cage, tar infested his lungs.  As Earl gradually sickened and lost interest in doing rat things, a clean white coat carefully and rationally recorded his death.

“Periodic Trouble of the Elements”

One day, tired of possessing the smallest atomic number, hydrogen decided it no longer liked oxygen.  This made oxygen angry, so after the water broke oxygen dumped carbon.  Carbon, being the backbone of organic life, didn’t appreciate this, and proceeded to break its bonds with every gas.  The noble gases, helium and argon, remained aloof.  Neon, already inert, didn’t really care.  The metals became recluses, huddling with their own kind, heavy with heavy, alkali with alkali.  Fed up with sharing electrons, all the elements packed up their protons, living happily in solitude…until uranium became unstable and started causing trouble.

“The Lonely Sky”

Caught between Mumbai’s torpid streets and the sweet saltiness of the Indian Ocean, Jaspreet watched the quiet dance of colour and cloud in the sky.  Pastels sank into regal purple as the sun slipped below the horizon.  Today should've marked the first full moon of the New Year. 

She sighed, lonely despite the vendors and family hordes.  Jaspreet strained to see a single ripple or wave, to hear the gentle sound of water lapping onto sand. 

The tideless ocean stood still.

She wept at its stillness.  Pulling her sari tight, she found solace in her memories—bright craters, dark maria.

“Why No Y?”

“What is that?”

“A picture of a man.”

“I know what men looked like.  But what’s that?”

“Oh.  That’s a penis.  When men were aroused, it changed size and shape.  That’s how they passed on their seed.”

“I’ve never seen one before.  Kind of funny looking.”

“What’s funny is how those Y chromosomes just stopped being passed on.”

“Natural selection.  Women have everything our species needs.  We can procreate, breastfeed, keep the peace.  Although, it would be nice to feel romantic without an oxytocin injection.”

“Do you think you could fall in love with that?”

“Good point.  Where’s my oxytocin?”

“Planetary Disturbance”

Jupiter, fed up with the sun being the center of attention, called his army of seventy-nine moons to war.  Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, children of a cold and aloof father, joined the call to arms.  After 4.6 billion years of servitude, Venus turned as well.  Earth—being democratic—went along with the majority, while Mercury—the sun’s most loyal companion—stood his orbit. 

Surrounded, the sun flared his corona in fury.  Helium fused, radiation rarefied, and sunspots swelled.  He charged his solar wind and blasted his traitorous children into oblivion.  Pluto, once forgotten, became his favoured son, quiet and distant.

“Gaia Stirs”

Gaia dreamed of forests, her skin flourishing with foliage.  Of fish and whales swimming in her fluids.  In her mind animals snaked, squirreled, swallowed, slothed, slugged, weaseled, wormed, platypused and philosophized.  Vast cities and advanced civilizations adorned her outer shell.  As Gaia awoke from her billion-year slumber, she stretched and mountains levelled, she yawned and oceans boiled, she sighed and volcanoes burst.  Fully conscious now, the only inhabitants she sensed were single-celled bacteria.  Embarrassed, she tried to keep still.  Her twitches triggered earthquakes.  When amoeba emerged as the most exciting life, Gaia grew bored and settled back into comfortable dormancy.

“Field Trip”

“Children, this is called grass.  Don’t worry, it’s safe.”

Timmy peered at the weird green blades, like the short flower stems inside biodomes.  The grass stood upright but squashed under his shoes.  Curious, he skipped through the fertile field—until he met something far stranger.

A towering column of furrowed brown reached for the sky.  The rough surface reminded him of a picture in a textbook.  Wood, this was called.  The flat green hands were leaves.  Timmy read the plaque.

Acer macrophyllum
Bigleaf maple
Last known specimen

He raced back to the skybus, only safe when his feet hit concrete.

“A Threesome”

Once upon an oxygen, two hydrogen atoms fell in love.  On a hot day they ran off to the ocean and found a trillion friends.  Light-headed with euphoria, H2O rose toward heaven and condensed to cloud.  A burst of thunder gave them a ride in rain.  H2O strengthened their bond and solidified atop Everest, although the sun soon persuaded them to move downstream.  Shortly after, a snow leopard swallowed H2O and their closest friends.  Esophagus, stomach, intestine, bloodstream—they circulated to their new home in the left kidney.  They lived hydrated ever after, until getting filtered into urine.