The Flower That Started Rumours
(short version)

Based on Isaiah 35:1-10 – A scorched land bursts into colour as a sign of God’s renewing work.

The town of Wattle Creek had two seasons. Dry, and slightly less dry. At least that was how Colin described it every time someone asked about the weather, which no one did anymore because he always answered anyway. The soil around town had cracked into a map of imaginary countries, none of which had seen rain since the last federal election. People had started referring to the shade as if it were a tourist attraction.

Mara, who had lived in Wattle Creek long enough to have opinions about local soil types, walked home from the community hall with her jaw clenched so tight it could have cracked a gum nut. The annual Desert Bloom Festival meeting had gone about as well as you would expect for an event celebrating wildflowers in a place that hadn’t produced one since the Prime Minister before last. Half the committee wanted to cancel. Colin led that half, loudly.

“We’re not giving up,” Mara had said, surprising even herself. She expected someone else to say it, but the room had gone quiet at exactly the wrong moment. “We can scale it back, but we don’t cancel it.”

And just like that, she had become the festival’s sole defender.

She didn’t know why it mattered to her. Maybe it was the way the town itself had started slumping, like an old verandah with one too many rotting posts. Perhaps it was the empty space inside her after her best friend moved south to be closer to her grandchildren. Maybe she simply refused to let Colin be right again.

Continue reading the full story here.

The Flower That Started Rumours

Based on Isaiah 35:1-10 – A scorched land bursts into colour as a sign of God’s renewing work.

The town of Wattle Creek had two seasons. Dry, and slightly less dry. At least that was how Colin described it every time someone asked about the weather, which no one did anymore because he always answered anyway. The soil around town had cracked into a map of imaginary countries, none of which had seen rain since the last federal election. People had started referring to the shade as if it were a tourist attraction.

Mara, who had lived in Wattle Creek long enough to have opinions about local soil types, walked home from the community hall with her jaw clenched so tight it could have cracked a gum nut. The annual Desert Bloom Festival meeting had gone about as well as you would expect for an event celebrating wildflowers in a place that hadn’t produced one since the Prime Minister before last. Half the committee wanted to cancel. Colin led that half, loudly.

“We’re not giving up,” Mara had said, surprising even herself. She expected someone else to say it, but the room had gone quiet at exactly the wrong moment. “We can scale it back, but we don’t cancel it.”

And just like that, she had become the festival’s sole defender.

She didn’t know why it mattered to her. Maybe it was the way the town itself had started slumping, like an old verandah with one too many rotting posts. Perhaps it was the empty space inside her after her best friend moved south to be closer to her grandchildren. Maybe she simply refused to let Colin be right again.

As she reached the edge of her street, she slowed. Something caught her eye in the roadside ditch. A single flower, barely higher than her ankle, pushing through dust like it had somewhere important to be.

“Oh, you’re brave,” she said out loud before realising she was talking to vegetation. “Or foolish. Hard to tell here.”

She crouched to look more closely. It wasn’t one of the usual hardy scrub flowers. This one looked like it belonged somewhere with actual rainfall. She squinted at it suspiciously. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

The flower, being a flower, didn’t answer. But something about its appearance, unexpected, stubborn, utterly unreasonable, lodged itself in her chest. She stood again and continued home, pretending she hadn’t just held a conversation with a plant.

The next morning, still irritated from the meeting, she walked to the neglected community garden behind the hall and stared at it. Weeds. Dust. A bush trolley with commitment issues. The garden had once been the pride of the town. Now it looked like the set of a low-budget dystopian film.

“Well,” she murmured, “may as well fail trying.”

She grabbed a hoe and started clearing a patch. The work was slow, dry, and thankless. Within an hour, Colin appeared, as predictable as a grim weather forecast.

“You know that won’t work,” he said, crossing his arms. “Gardening in a drought? Pointless.”

“Thanks, Colin,” she replied. “Good to get expert advice from someone who’s contributed absolutely nothing since 1987.”

He blinked, unsure whether to be offended or confused. She didn’t give him the chance to decide; she kept working until he finally huffed and left.

Over the next week, people noticed her efforts. A pair of schoolkids walked past every afternoon and eventually asked whether they could help dig. A retired teacher brought cuttings “just in case.” The mechanic from the servo dropped off a stack of old buckets, announcing loudly that he didn’t believe any of this nonsense but that the buckets were cluttering his shed.

No one said the word hope. They simply picked up tools and quietly chose not to watch her work alone.

Then one Thursday night, while the town slept, a thin curtain of rain drifted over Wattle Creek. Not enough to impress the Bureau of Meteorology, but enough to leave the road glistening and the air smelling faintly of eucalyptus optimism.

In the morning, Colin declared the rain “bad for the cricket pitch,” prompting an eye roll from the entire main street.

Within days, small patches of colour appeared on the edges of town. At first, Mara assumed she was imagining them. But the blooms multiplied, spreading across gullies, fence lines, and miraculously, the community garden beds they had revived together.

People started walking with their heads lifted instead of angled toward the ground. Children pointed out bursts of red and lavender like they had discovered treasure. Older residents, who remembered wetter days, stood quietly beside the flowers, hands clasped as if reacquainting themselves with an old friend.

During the final planning meeting, even Colin shifted in his seat and muttered, “Well… I suppose the festival can go ahead.” To everyone’s astonishment, it sounded almost like an apology.

Festival day arrived warm and clear. The event was modest; bunting made from old shirts, stalls from repurposed pallets, and a sausage sizzle that charred everything equally. But people lingered longer than usual. They greeted each other more gently. The children ran from flower to flower as if mapping joy.

Mara slipped away for a moment, heading back to the ditch where she had seen the first stubborn blossom. It was still there, no taller, no grander, but now surrounded by several others, huddled like a small choir.

“So you weren’t foolish after all,” she said softly. “You just got here before the rest of us.”

She stood for a long moment, hands tucked into her pockets. She thought about the garden, the neighbours with their unpredictable kindness, the shared work that turned a tired town toward possibility. The land hadn’t bloomed because people believed. It had bloomed because they prepared for the chance that it might.

As she turned to walk back to the festival, she noticed something strange. The flowers seemed to be nodding together in the breeze. Not whimsical enough to be magic; just whimsical enough to make her smile.

“Alright,” she said to no one in particular. “Maybe things do change.”

And behind her, the desert continued to dare.