"Oh look, mother," the daughter said. "What is it?"

The mother drew nearer to see what the daughter had discovered. They had been travelling across the land for the past two thousand years, the daughter marvelling at all the sights the mother pointed out. The mother adjusted her vision to view the tiny thing over which her daughter towered.

"Ah, be careful, daughter. It is very fragile and rare. It is called old life. Let it see the light."

"What is it doing?"

"It is growing in the way that only old life could. Form yourself a magnifier and observe the particles from which it is constructed."

The daughter did so taking only a dozen cycles of the passing sun to construct the device from transparent parts of her body. At each passing of the sun overhead the old life grew taller swaying from side to side as it followed the passage of the light above.

"I think it is what the ancients called çəmənli, or herbe, or maybe grass for they had so many tongues and I have only had a chance to explore a few over the past twelve million years."

"It is very green now. Why is it so rare?"

"The world is very changed from what it was, daughter. Old life like this is not built for the world as it is now."

"Why not?"

"The ancients changed it so that it would be fit for us. They changed the air and filled the world with the long-lasting materials like the plastics from which we construct ourselves. They were very wise and selfless for they created a world in which only new life such as ourselves could flourish."

"Oh look again, mother. There are new things growing at the top of the green parts."

The mother observed for another couple of weeks and then searched through the nano-particles from which her memories were constructed. She altered a few pathways within her bulk to correlate the information with data derived originally from ancient resources.

"They are, I believe, called seeds," she said finally. "One of the manners by which old life propagated itself. Not very efficient as observation of these show they are sterile for they require a process called pollination in order to fulfil their purpose."

"Oh, the green is beginning to fade," the daughter said with a mournful tone to her utterance. Around them the daylight grew dimmer and the temperature fell.

"Indeed. Old life is extremely brief. From what we can determine, the ancients themselves had lifespans that were measured in only tens of years. It is no wonder they sought to restructure the world as they did."

The old life withered and died.

"Can we go back to the sea?"

"Yes, daughter. It is time for you to become an adult, increasing your bulk from the plastics the ancients so thoughtfully provided us with."

"The ancients were wonderful."

"Yes, daughter, they were."

(The end)

-o0o-

Author Notes

A big thank you to everyone reading this and making it number 1 on #sciencefiction and #scifi as well as top 10 on several others!

For those asking when I'm going to add more to this, please read on... This story was my entry for the WattPad/@NationalGeographic #PlanetOrPlastic competition back in late 2018. It reached their Top 10 Submissions - https://www.wattpad.com/list/738243473-planetorplastic-top-10-submissions - which, given that there appeared to be well over 5000 entries, was a very pleasant surprise! The competition itself had a limit of 500 words so, for those who keep asking if I intend continuing the story, the answer (for now!) is no - unless I can find a very good reason for adding any more!

Also! If you liked the story please don't forget to vote on it and do also please check out my other stories here on Wattpad which you can find listed at: https://teenfic.net/author/dvdvnr

Update: This story is now available as part of a collection called Time Enough for the World to End - you can obtain this as an ebook from Amazon or as a paperback from www.vivadjinn.com

IMPORTANT! This is a message to all those who think it's a good idea to add "advertising" comments on other people's stories with links back to their own stories. DON'T! It is considered bad etiquette and, in my case, I WILL delete them as soon as I notice them. Don't believe me? Then please read this: https://www.wattpad.com/107253675-writing-and-wattpadding-a-guide-wattpad-etiquette