Article: 261542 of talk.bizarre
From: Andrew Solberg <andsol@cml.rice.edu>
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre
Subject: 66x100
Date: 1 Dec 1995 21:39:07 -0500
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Status: O



PINECONE
********

The forest was dying.  A small brush fire, fanned by high
winds and fed by three dry seasons' dead wood, had blossomed
into an inferno miles across.  The animals had fled, and the
old-growth conifers were left to burn.  Triggered by heat,
the pinecones opened to drop seeds to the ground.

                       - * -

The planet was dying.  The aliens had unleashed nanites that
could transform oxygen into carbon monoxide, and the atmosphere
was swiftly becoming poisonous.  In tens and hundreds, boarding
any vessel they could, humanity fled its homeworld just ahead
of extermination.

The pinecone opened, and we scattered to the stars.

-- 
This post is COPYRIGHT 1995, Andrew Solberg.  All rights reserved.
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Andrew Solberg is HWRNMNBSOL: andsol@cml.rice.edu, Math Dept., Rice U.