The botanist's last letter

 

Experimental Short Story Series #44
Title: “The Botanist’s Last Letter”
By Faraz Parvez (Pen name of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal, Former Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA)

Blog Post:

There are stories rooted in time—and there are those that bloom beyond it. Welcome, dear readers, to the 44th installment of our ongoing Experimental Short Story Series, where narrative bends, logic trembles, and language surrenders to imagination.

Today, we unfold “The Botanist’s Last Letter”—a tale that germinates at the intersection of environmental memory, scientific solitude, and the frail pulse of human remorse. A story told in fragments, like petals drifting from a forgotten bloom.

The Story:

After decades of ecological collapse and silent pandemics, the cities have become archives of glass and moss. Somewhere near the overgrown skeletal dome of the once-celebrated National Botanical Research Institute, an elderly botanist returns to the ruins of her life’s work.

Dr. Saeeda Aslam—former head of Botanical Mutation Studies, now alone, arthritic, and unacknowledged—writes her final letter, not to a person, but to a plant.

“I found you today, little one, bursting through the cement like a green scream. You are not in any manual. Not a hybrid. Not lab-bred. You are… remembering.”

The sapling is unlike anything she’s ever studied. Its leaves pulse faintly under moonlight. Its scent conjures vivid memories she never lived. Its tendrils sway to music no one else hears. And then—on the third dusk—its leaves move in Morse code. It speaks. In broken pulses, in ancient chlorophyll.

“WE ARE MEMORY. WE ARE NOT YOURS.”

In the weeks that follow, Dr. Saeeda records everything. In a mixture of grief and scientific rigor, she documents the conversations. The plant tells her it is not sentient in the human sense, but rather a composite memory of Earth itself—carrying in its cells the weight of forgotten forests, extinct whispers of species, and the long shadow of human negligence.

Her last entry reads:

“Forgive us. We named everything, but we forgot to listen. If you are the archivist of our sins, then let this letter be our apology... written not with ink, but the last tremor of wonder.”

She disappears after that—leaving only the letter, the plant, and a greenhouse grown wild with sentient flora. Some say the vines whisper her name on rainy nights.

Why This Story Matters:

“The Botanist’s Last Letter” is more than a sci-fi parable—it’s a soft requiem for the world we take for granted. This tale reminds us that stories are not always for humans alone; sometimes, the soil listens too.

In keeping with our Experimental Short Story Series, this piece challenges conventional storytelling by blurring the line between protagonist and plant, confession and communion. It is a story written on leaves, not pages.

A Note to Our Readers:

With each story in this 60-part series, we aim to stretch the very form of fiction—to give you a taste of what storytelling becomes when we let imagination steer. We are humbled by your continued support, enthusiasm, and literary curiosity.

Stay with us as we move toward the next stories in this daring collection. And remember: what grows in silence often speaks the loudest.

Follow, comment, and share. And one day soon—you’ll hold all sixty stories in your hands, in eBook and printed form.

—Faraz Parvez
(Pen name of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal)
For fiction that breaks the mold—this blog is your literary garden.

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