The seeds wait in the belly of the earth, in its darkness and warmth. Above them, cities grow from mudbrick and stone until vast and towering with glass and concrete. But the seeds are patient. They have lain buried deep in the darkness for millennia, ripe with memories of carboniferous swamps and ancient insect-haunted forests. With time, glass will shatter and concrete crumble to dust. Then the seeds will crack open a thin sliver of white flesh. Roots will dig down for clean water and pale naked shoots grope upwards through the soil. And the cities will be forests again.
Author Bio: A V Laidlaw lives in the UK, in a house built entirely from books, but dreams of one day moving into a cosy hobbit hole. He writes fiction, occasional poetry, and tweets at @AvLaidlaw.
Seeds is part of 101 Fiction issue 9.
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