It wasn’t entirely a dream in the way that he remembered dreams. There was no familiar procession of vivid images spread across the slumbering landscape of his unconscious desires. His new life had become a kind of half-dream, like a drug-skewed altered state of consciousness—a heavy prevailing euphoria punctuated by episodes of the starkest clarity. Here, emotions were more poignant, perceptions more insightful than ever before. And it was not the least bit unpleasant.

He knew not how long he’d been staring at the deep blue sky, contemplating the permanence of the Earth and the heavens. At some point, his attention began to wander from the most passionate birdsong and the eloquent whispering of summer leaves. He lowered his gaze to admire his new and most beautiful family and the rejoicing began anew. At times such as this, little coherent bubbles of thought would stream to the surface and he would remember how it had all come to be...

•

Three years after the onset of the Simian Impatiens Nola virus, when the human population of England had settled back from over fifty million to its pre-Stone Age levels, Kenny finally found a focus for his life. Subsequent to the initial surprise of finding himself (a seemingly unhealthy middle-aged bachelor) amongst the few who were still alive, and, after suffering the obligatory stages of grief (not only for his family and friends but also for a vanished civilization), he’d come to realize the importance of a tangible need for his continued existence.
Kenny knew that he was different. He’d always known that he was different. While the other S.I.N. survivors tended to flock together, he continued to live alone, preferring the blessed solitude.
No humanitarian pursuits for him, then, in the new scheme of things.

Since the end of mankind’s meteoric population implosion, Kenny had been drawn slowly but steadily towards the appreciation of nature in all its myriad forms—except for man, of course. In particular, there was something about the plant world that called out to him: the sorrowful way that the Earth’s vegetation had been harnessed, nay abused, by man over the millennia. The ornamental Poinsettia in the living room; perfect-skinned tomatoes in the greenhouse and unblemished crops in the fields; the orderly rows of trees in orchards; and most especially the logging of rainforests: he saw them all as examples of humankind’s control over plant life.
Well, now the planet’s vegetation was largely unfettered; free to adapt and diversify once more. Natural selection over artificial.

With increasing regularity, Kenny found himself wondering if there was some way that he could help the inevitable process along. The man had not been much of a gardener in the old days but he’d always been impressed by the seemingly effortless beauty of flowers. He was well aware, of course, that the garden varieties were no more than a product of humanity’s incessant meddling. On the other hand, many wild flower species had become endangered or extinct due to man’s overuse of herbicides and fertilizers, and by the transformation of virtually all arable land to pasture.
Books—something that used to be taken for granted. By 2014 they’d become as rare as the proverbial rocking-horse shit (or, indeed, the post-apocalyptic rocking horse, itself); their intellectual value being far outweighed by the simple fact that paper burns easily and is handy for lighting fires. Kenny, however, had acquired an extensive library. His ruminations on wild flowers led him to search out an illustrated book on the flora and fauna of the British Isles. He studied it late into the night by the pale flame of a lamp.

Upon turning a page in the wild flower section, he was captivated by a colour photograph of a cornflower, with its intense blue flower heads. He learned that the pigment structure of the species was totally different to that found in any other blue flowers. He further learned that the cornflower was once prevalent throughout Britain, where it was considered to be an irksome weed of cultivated land.
In the years leading up to S.I.N., the cornflower had become yet another casualty to agricultural intensification, and was now at risk of extinction—not unlike mankind, itself. To Kenny, the humble cornflower seemed to symbolize the whole of the plant world’s domination by man. If only one of the two species was to survive, he wondered if perhaps it ought to be the cornflower.
Kenny had decided, then. He would dedicate his life to reintroducing the cornflower back across the nation—one man’s modest, yet heartfelt, contribution to the new world order.
But where might he find the seeds?

All of the local garden centres had been looted years before, just like any other retail outlet. Kenny, however, felt sure that nobody but he could possibly have any use for wild flower seeds. Before long, he was forced to acknowledge that he’d been wrong. He’d made visits to half a dozen garden centres and the story was the same each time: all of the stock had been pilfered. Indeed, the buildings had been stripped of anything that might burn; leaving vast empty spaces that stood like deserted cathedrals—desolate memorials to a past civilization.
Kenny’s seventh attempt, nevertheless, proved to be fruitful when he lifted a length of fallen steel shelving to chance upon three packets of Suttons seeds. The first paper envelope, French Marigold, was damp and mouldy. Tearing it open, he discovered that the seeds had rotted. He discarded the packet with a curse and inspected the next one. Fifty cabbage seeds. Not quite what he’d been looking for but they might come in handy. He held his breath and flipped over the last packet...
Wildflower Mixture—includes corn marigold, cornflower and poppy.
“Bingo!” he cried. Kenny hadn’t spoken a word for days, much less made an exclamation. But the man was ecstatic. The find was more than serendipitous, he knew. Fate had played its enigmatic hand, here.
He sowed the seeds in his own garden, following the instructions on the packet to the letter.

A few months later, he was rewarded with a sea of blossoming wild flowers. The cornflowers reached almost to his waist. Their flower heads measured a good three centimetres in diameter, consisting of a tightly packed cluster of disc florets surrounded by a ring of the larger ray florets. The colour, of course, was of the deepest blue. Cornflower blue.

Soon afterwards, Kenny was busying himself with the harvesting and storing of seeds. Only the cornflower seeds, of course—he’d little interest in the others. During his lonesome forays around the deserted neighbourhoods, he’d spied the occasional cornflower growing in overrun gardens. How bizarre that it had become more prevalent in humankind’s tiny managed pens than it had in the wild. He harvested those seeds, too, to augment his store.
The following spring, Kenny sowed King Edward’s overgrown playing field. The local school somehow seemed perfect for his needs. He’d glimpsed the ghosts of carefree children flitting through the drab wild grasses, heard their shrill cries on the wind that soughed thereabouts. And he’d wept—for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime. Hitherto, he’d believed he was done with weeping.

By August, the old playing field was teeming with potent blue flowers; as if a swathe of sky had been snatched from the cheery heavens to be tacked down upon the unforgiving Earth. Kenny dared to hope that the ghosts had found a fragile peace.

The summer of 2015 saw the abandoned town practically awash with cornflowers and Kenny was content. He’d had to admit that he was settling into his new vocation; the man had never felt more alive. The following Spring, Kenny intended to leave his little home on the South Coast and head inland, spreading the cornflower as he went. He thought of himself as a latter-day Johnny Appleseed (and, considering those dark days for humanity, he placed a particular emphasis on the word ‘latter’). Dressed in denim from head to toe, armed with only a rusty hoe and a heavy-cotton shoulder bag filled with seeds, he would scatter the precious cornflower far and wide. No longer, he decided, would he be known by his old name of Kenneth Bartleby, but henceforth he would be known only as Cornflower Blue. Because times were changing and he knew it.
While he would have preferred not to, Blue found it necessary to make occasional visits to the more populous areas, in order to barter for certain staple goods. It was during one of these interactions that he first heard of the others. Although, at first, he found it difficult to believe, he soon learned that there were a number of individuals out there performing similar duties to his own: spreading wild flowers across the countryside. Each had their own distinct flower. Among these persons, he was told, was a fiery haired woman by the name of Poppy Red; also, an individual of questionable sexuality who answered only to the name of Lavender Pink; and another woman, who insisted upon being called Marigold Meg. There was even a sullen-faced child known as The Orchid Kid.

It pleased Cornflower Blue to know that there were kindred spirits out there somewhere, with a similar calling to his own. They were bound by a singular purpose; united in an almost religious fervour. And yet, ultimately, were they not together alone? Blue knew that it must stay that way. Always a solitary man, he believed that it was essential he undertook his mission single-handedly.
And that is why it hit him so hard when, on the very next bartering trip, he learned of the existence of another Cornflower Blue, this one heading steadily down from the north.

How dare he? thought Blue. The reintroduction of the cornflower is my vocation and mine alone. How dare he emulate my good work?
And so it was that, after only minimal deliberation, Blue decided to seek out and confront the charlatan.

Three weeks later, however, the two met quite by chance in a moonlit clearing. Trying to ignore a pounding headache, Blue had paused in the centre of the glade to withdraw a handful of his precious seeds. As he raised his arm ready to scatter them on the breeze, a shadowy form stepped into the clearing and halted in front of him. The silent figure, of equal height to Cornflower Blue, was also clad in denim. The new arrival might well have been his doppelganger, what with a hoe leant against the shoulder like a rifle and the almost identical bag to Blue’s own. Even while rendered into silhouette by the moon, however, the figure was unmistakeably that of a woman.
Blue was somewhat taken aback. He’d hitherto been preparing to be hostile.
“W-Why are you copying me?” he asked, outright.
“What makes you think it’s me who’s copying you?” the woman replied.
“B-But–”
The girl slunk forward, then, and her face was suddenly illuminated. Blue witnessed her beauty for the first time.
“But...”
Her face was heart-shaped; the features, elfin. Her freckled skin gleamed. Her hair shimmered silver-blue in the moonlight.
Blue found himself stepping closer to the woman, so close that their lips almost touched. He gazed into impossibly deep blue eyes. Cornflower blue. The times were changing and he knew it.
“I’ve been looking for you...” he murmured.
“And I, you,” she breathed.
They kissed, then.
“...all of my life...” he said, as they parted.
They kissed, again—a long, impassioned kiss. Blue’s mind spiralled away in ecstasy. He began to think that he must be floating—rising gradually above the forest floor—their precious tools, so casually discarded, now far beyond reach.
Blue gave each of his feet an experimental waggle and it seemed like nothing solid lay beneath them. He opened his eyes to discover his feet planted firmly on the ground.
“You have beautiful eyes,” she said. “Such...beautiful...eyes...”

She held Blue’s face tenderly as he encircled her waist with his arms. Once more, they kissed, and the rapture began anew. He kicked off his shoes and hiked up her jeans with a bare foot. He gently rubbed her calf while she caressed the soft skin of his neck. Blue didn’t experience the floating sensation this time; rather, it was one of being grounded; firmly rooted to the spot; at one with the Earth.

And when she finally drew back and her face began to split and peel it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. Blue’s headache had completely gone. He opened his mouth wide—wider than it had ever opened before. As her skull parted to reveal a funnelled pistil, he guided his questing stamen into the glistening neck...

•

...a rustle and his hazy attention was drawn to a redheaded woman who stood on the edge of the forest clearing. She’d carefully parted the vegetation to marvel at the profusion of wild flowers growing there. The flower heads of every plant, she saw, were an unmistakable deep blue. Cornflower blue.
And she couldn’t have missed the two giant cornflowers—entwined like earnest lovers—soaring at the centre of the glade, surrounded by their tiny, more-conventional cousins. Nine feet above the ground, their huge stalks fused together in a fleshy mass resembling a pair of upraised, eternally-smiling faces.

An abundance of swollen pods, each the size of a football, were suspended above the faces. A multitude of seeds, waiting to flourish and take their place amongst the vanguard of a new hybrid species. The Earth’s chosen successors to the human race.
“And the meek shall truly inherit the Earth,” Poppy Red whispered.
With that, she backed away and turned to steer an easy course around the glutted clearing.
Moments later, the woman had vanished into the forest, en route to her own unique rendezvous with destiny. Because the times they were a-changin’, and she knew it.
Blue became aware of his soul-mate gently stirring beside him and he pulled her closer still. After a while their heads turned, as one, back to the sky. And the heavens were of the deepest cornflower blue.

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