Dandelions

       Two girls sat on a rock and stared out at the wide expanse of sea and sky that met their gaze.  They had decided to spend the day philosophically.

            'Do you think, Jo, that something could drop out of the sky big enough to empty the entire ocean in one splash?'

            'Oh, sure,' said Jo, easily enough.  'But if that happened, we'd all die.'

            'All of us?  Everyone?’ queried the asker.
            ‘Definitely,’ said Jo.
            ‘Even if someone was right in the middle of the continent sitting ready in one of those boats that can flip the right way up again?’
            ‘They’d probably die, too,’ Jo said.  ‘Listen, Lily, do you think there could be a disease so bad everyone on earth would die within an hour?’
            Lily sat thinking for a moment, then said, ‘If the disease travelling in something really fast, like through light, then yeah, it could happen.’
            ‘Light as the bearer of doom?’ said Jo, with a raised brow and a small smile.
            ‘Exactly,’ said Lily lightly, flashing her friend a cheeky grin.  ‘How strange the earth would be with no people.’
            ‘If it was only me left, I think I’d like it,’ said Jo.
            ‘I wouldn’t like it at all,’ said Lily.
            ‘And I suppose you would be lonely,’ said Jo.
            ‘And I suppose you think you wouldn’t be,’ retorted Lily.
            They sat in silence together, pondering very different things.
            ‘But you would be lonely, Jo,’ said Lily, for that was what she had thought about.  ‘I know it.  You’d be lonelier than I’d be.’
            ‘Nah,’ said Jo with a wave of her hand, as though she could swipe Lily’s thoughts away.
            ‘Oh, you would, Jo.  And you want to know something else?’
            ‘What?’ asked Jo, though she’d rather have just said no.
            ‘I think you’re lonely now,’ said Lily, with a firm nod and a solemn look on her face.
            Jo didn’t say anything for a while, and as she sat, her brow sunk lower and lower.
            ‘What makes you say that?’ she asked eventually.
            ‘Little things,’ said Lily.
            They sat in silence again.
            ‘It’s okay,’ said Lily.
            ‘Is it?’ asked Jo, her eyes turned to her friend in wide surprise.
            ‘Sure,’ said Lily.  Then she reached behind her and pulled a dandelion gray head from the grass.  ‘I got you this,’ she said to Jo with a silly grin.
            ‘A weed?’ Jo stared at her with a raised brow on her face.
            ‘Its only a weed if you don’t like it,’ said Lily, knowingly.
            ‘And what if I don’t?’ asked Jo.
            ‘Then it’s a weed.  But I know you like it.’
            Jo rolled her eyes at her friend.  But then she smiled, and it lit her whole face golden.  She grabbed the flower and blew.
            The world would be a while lot less lonely with a few more specks of yellow in it.

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