How It Feeds

Nature abhors a vacuum. One way or another, every hole gets filled.

In a not-distant-enough future, pollution has throttled plants of their ability to communicate with the natural world. Cut off from pollinators, flowers have devolved into colorless, unassuming things. Passively awaiting propagation via human intervention. Fully dependent upon the species responsible for their helplessness.

Deep within the Free Republic of Florida remains a rare expanse of wilderness. It is rumoured one orchid may still bloom there, although no signs of bugs nor birds have been found. One question puzzles all the orchid's would-be discoverers: How does it reproduce? When Orion Rael Armijo, trans man and botany scholar ventures in search of the fabled orchid, he realizes their collective folly.

What they should have been asking was:

How does it feed?