©️GeraldineBanksSeptember2024
Albert sat and stared out of the window of the Community Centre. He was thinking of everything that had happened over the last few weeks
“It would have been better if it had been gold.Gold he could have given away or sold,but the plants and soil,well that’s what caused the trouble.” He half mumbled to himself and continued to stare out of the window at the desolation.
He’d lost his garden. He and the others in the street where he used to live had been put up in temporary accommodation in the Centre due to the riots and vandalism.
The noise of the Police sirens had stopped and now it was up to the army to patrol the area.He watched as the men dressed in khaki combat gear walked around with their SLR rifles at the ready.
Ocassionally a troop carrier would trundle along,dropping off reinforcements and collecting any injured soldiers.For now it was quiet,but no one knew when it would start again.
The crop that Albert had grown in his garden,from seeds he had spent some years cross fertilising with and mixing and matching hybrids with his chosen origin plant
The origin plant he had obtained mail order from a Website called “The Diviner of Deighties”.The site specialised in unusual plants and the origin plant Albert chose was advertised as a therapeutic mallow,used for softening the skin and reducing wrinkles. That was the start of his quest for the Elixir of Life.
A quest that resulted in a final bloom,part orchid,rose,geranium and candelua and some herbs from ancient Egypt and some old spices from a remote region of the palmali hills in India called Kalmasi.
He wished now that he hadn’t bothered It had been for his old mum’s sake.Firstly to stop her ageing and latterly to help her live longer.He hadn’t wanted to lose her,but lose her he did.
Once people had found out his secret,that was the end.The ingredients and his land were taken from him.The Government did not want people living forever or at least that is what they had told him.
Albert knew his discovery would be kept for those who were privileged,maybe it wouldn’t be for just the super rich,but those that were chosen .The elite, those who were in power and who were born to be in charge.
He comforted himself with the fact that living forever was not all it was cracked up to be.He focused his eyes on the darkness,there were people out there,figures in the dark,hoping to get to his garden.Find the rare plants he had grown and take samples of the soil,which the spreading folklore had said were part of the Elixir,but which he knew to be absolute nonsense.
He had seen a programme on the Google box by Brian Cox,a famous scientist who had said that the world would end as a fireball and Albert had stopped taking the Elixir himself, it wasn’t natural,why live forever just to end up being blown apart in a fireball.It made no sense.
Rumours had circulated that there were spores in the soil which were self-generating and once you introduced them into the ecosystem they would perpetually produce the life giving Elixir
That was why the Government had told him,him and his neighbours would have to move.It was when the private JCB diggers arrived en masse and they destroyed his and the surrounding gardens that the army arrived to restore order.
Samples of soil stolen during those raids , were claimed to contain Elixir spores.The samples now sold for a fortune on the internet. All they were soil samples and heavens know where from.There were no spores.
The plants did exist however,but they’d all been put in quarantine by the Government.Albert would have to change his name and identity,once he escaped from the Community Centre where he and his neighbors had taken refuge.
There was though ,a concern that he would not be able to escape He could be captured and made to give up the formula for the Elixir.The Government were trying to stop this,but there was no way they could control the situation which had escalated beyond their control,despite their promises.
Suddenly,through the window Albert saw a flash of light. He knew what it meant.The plants were safe somewhere,but there were forces afield to make sure the Elixir formula would not get into anyone else’s hands.
He would indeed die in a fireball.
The End.
thenotsomightyom 