Everybody's got to leave the darkness some time

All over the world, the message had been sent. Through the deserts of Arabia, the jungles of southeast Asia, the veldt of Africa, through the permafrost of Siberia, the mountains of Peru, through each of the oceans and seas of the world, wherever there were people, the message had been sent. All the earth’s billions of inhabitants had gathered around their plasma screens, their radios, their laptops, their cell phones, to hear the message.

It was a single flower. A single flower. A daisy. Thirty six bright white petals framed its vibrant yellow face, cautiously poking above the grass, still wet with the morning dew. E pluribus unum, one of many, of thousands, upon the rolling hills of Redwood City. A daisy.

It was chosen because it was ordinary, chosen to become the messenger.

The machine, the product of years of research, upon which rode the dissimilar hopes of investors, environmentalists, industrialists, surrounded its delicate stem, a microphone bent down, listening, listening, for the first ever communication between plants and people. This one flower, its one message, for the world. And it had whispered:

“They don’t know.”

The newspapers, the magazines, all around the corporate water coolers, on the Internet, on the streets, it was all anyone could talk about. What was it we didn’t know? What was it? Could the machine have been wrong? Had the flower really said it? Was it a big joke, a big hoax?

The machine was moved. It was bent over the rice paddies of Vietnam, the sunflowers of Kansas, the lilacs of Indonesia, the redwoods of Jones Gulch. Everywhere, anywhere, the message was the same. A haunting, a whispering, a repeating, over and over again, the voices of countless trees, flowers, and grasses, a hushed chorus.

“They don’t know. They don’t know. They don’t know.”

The machine was checked. The machine was double checked.

There is nothing wrong with the machine, all the experts said. Nothing wrong at all.