Josie Coyle / Woodford County

Moonflower Whispers

Once, before the world was whole, and no humans or animals existed, there were only flowers, and trees, and grass, and simple nature. The biggest flower field seemed to span the entire right half of the hemisphere. One flower field was so immense, that if you stood at the top of the largest mountain and looked down at it, you still couldn’t see the whole thing. The oceans were even jealous of its magnificent size. The colors ranged from dark, plum colored tulips to bright yellow marigolds. The sizes ranged from delicate baby’s breath, to large, open sunflowers, standing six feet tall. Every flower was welcomed.

The flowers had their own language that none but them could understand. Where the trees yelled in loud grumbles and valleys in high pitched songs, the flowers whispered in soft and light hums that no one could really even hear. The quietest flowers were the moonflowers. They were soft at heart, and the other flowers cooed at them kindly. Little words, such as cute or soft. The kind moonflowers would sing thanks lightly in response.

Now, an important thing to remember about flowers is that their language only consisted of tiny, single words. No sentences, no complete thoughts, no stories. Not the moonflowers though--they had a secret language. This secret language was made at night when all the other flowers had fallen asleep. The calm moonflowers were tired of only hearing the same single words over and over again. So, in the darkness of night, when only they could bloom, they made stories. Stories of other flowers and of other lands, beyond the flower fields.

As time went on, and humans came to the earth, and the louder they got, the softer the flowers became. Humans were loud, and even out-yelled the noisy trees. One night though, one quiet human was roaming the flower fields. She was young and small. She looked lost, but unafraid. As she sat down to rest she heard little whisperings. She looked and looked for the noise, which lead her to the moonflowers. She sat with them and they welcomed her quiet presence. They taught her their simple language and filled her up with stories.

When the sun began to rise that morning, the moonflowers grew hushed, and the girl left. The girl took the stories with her and gave them to the humans. They changed them and added to them. She was known as the original human storyteller and the other humans loved her for it. She knew, though, that the real storytellers were the simple, silent, moonflowers.