When there were no flowers on the face of the earth, not even a single flower, when flowers were a dream unknown, a little girl was playing in the garden in front of her house. She repeated the words she knew. She loved words and loved to repeat the word she learned before others. Mama, she repeated ten times. She repeated it as if it were a sweet candy and chewed it as if it were a red berry.
But suddenly, without her knowing, the word fell from her mouth to the ground. It fell and rolled like a coin rolls and disappeared. The girl searched for her word, looked at the ground, turned around herself to see where the word had gone. Where did my sweet word go? Where did it disappear? I want my word. She searched for it a long time but didn’t find it. All she saw was a small round bulb like a chickpea.
She said: I’m not looking for chickpeas or round things. I want the word that fell from my mouth. The sun said: Fine, I’ll search for it again tomorrow. Then she added: I have other words to repeat: Papa, star, cat, bird. Time passed, a damp wind blew, lightning flashed and thunder rolled, and rain fell. The bulb went deeper into the dirt. She felt the taste and smell of the rain. It was sweet-tasting with a good smell.
Time passed, and the bulb felt something sprouting with her body under the dirt. She wondered with joy: Is this a root I’ll walk with? It was a small white root extending in the mud to absorb water and food from the earth’s interior. Another time passed, and two other things emerged for her from above the earth’s surface from inside the bulb. She wondered in surprise: Are they hands so I can hold things with them? They weren’t hands, they were two green leaves.
Then the leaves multiplied, and more time passed, and something small appeared between the leaves. The bulb wondered: Is this a small stick I play with? It wasn’t a stick. This was the stem, and it grew and rose, and a small ball appeared on its top. The bulb said: What is this? A small ball for me to roll. The creatures, birds, rabbits, and turtles all looked at the small ball.
All the creatures wondered: What is this small ball, and what does it hide inside? No one knew. This was something new, something they hadn’t seen before. They all wanted to know what was hiding inside it. They waited for the small ball to open to show what was inside it. The spring sun was warm. The ball felt the warmth of the sun, so it began to open slowly. The ball opened to a red flower, and when the flower opened, a sweet, soft voice echoed in the space: Mama, mama.
Everyone knew then that the red flower was the word that fell from the little girl’s mouth. Everyone looked at the flower with amazement, not believing it. That was indeed the first flower on earth.