COSMOS

Yellow acacia: secret love

Way up north in the permafrost, 1300 kilometers beyond the Arctic Circle, is the world's largest secure seed storage called Svalbard Global Seed Vault, opened by the Norwegian Government in 2008. This solid rock vault is Noah's ark for safe and secure long-term storage of the seeds, protected by any man-made or natural disasters. Today, the vault now holds more than 1 million seed samples from gene banks worldwide.

Imagine the world wiped off of any living human being. It could have been from a drought, a flood, an earthquake, volcanic activities, meteors, aliens, or nuclear wars - either way, it would not matter. The world is silent, cold, and dark. It seems like this is the end.

And then you see small greens spreading across the destruction. Millions of seeds are popping out from the ground, tender and light. Among those greens, there will be cosmoses, gentle but strong, just like how the god first made them.

Yes, at the end of the world, there will still be some part of you and me left.

***

Brett has never imagined spending a Friday evening in this manner: sitting on a couch with Eddy, watching porn. Moaning and the thumping of a couple were filling the silence between them. How did it come to this?

Brett has just walked back to the living room from a brief practice session. The inhaler was doing a much better job than he has expected. After a few days, his coughing has subsided tremendously. If Brett could just keep his condition like this, he could probably wait until his feelings for Eddy naturally subsides. At least, that sounded like a good plan for now.

Eddy hurriedly closed his laptop when he heard Brett coming. His face was burning up like a well-roasted sweet potato.

"Hey," Eddy spoke up, a bit too loud for an indoor conversation.

"...hello?" Brett replied, puzzled. "How's the twosetviolin tour schedule coming up?"

"Good, good," Eddy showed his thumbs up to Brett. Brett knew Eddy's smile was fake as soon as he saw it.

"What are you hiding?" Brett's voice was stern, like a mom scolding her child.

"Nothing?"

"You're lying."

"Probably."

"Show me," Brett tried to open Eddy's laptop in a playful manner. Eddy covered his whole body onto the computer, blocking Brett. They wrestled for a while and Brett finally managed to sneak his hands upon Eddy's side to tickle him mercilessly.

"That's cheating!" Eddy shouted as soon as he rolled to the floor.

Brett whistled in triumph as he opened the laptop, seeing a... video of a naked man french kissing another naked woman on a bed. Eddy covered his face with his hands, absolutely mortified.

"I thought you were scheduling a world tour for twosetviolin?" Brett raised his eyebrows.

"I got distracted," Eddy admitted.

"That is a huge leap of distraction from a music tour to a porn website," Brett tapped his finger on a monitor, skeptically. "So this is what you like? Pretty normal." Brett stared at the man now preparing himself between the woman's legs.

"This was not for my entertainment - it was for a research purpose," Eddy defended himself.

"You know that sounds ten times more suspicious, right?"

"Not that I ... I watch anything weirder when I'm... oh fuck, Brett. Just give that back," Eddy snatched the laptop out of Brett's hands, plopping on a couch.