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Trissa sat in the violet chair and half-disappeared behind a puff of pollen. "Ack!" she said. "Oh, this does smell nice." She brushed the petals with the back of her hand. "And so soft!"

"That one isn't available in hypoallergenic, I'm afraid," said Wendy, their salesperson. "It can be a lot of fun for kids. Assuming they aren't allergic."

"What's this one?" asked Robert, sinking into a plush red bloom.

"Sir, be careful! That's..." Wendy trailed off. "It takes some acclimatization. That's our home office model."

"It's lovely," said Trissa, as Robert began to snore. "What's it grown from?"

"Poppy."

One Petal, Falling

"Lord?"

The Golden King did not answer. His face was lit from below by his work. "Do you know purity, Thimblerig?"

"M'lord?"

"Something so pure, so refined, that its very touch sears that which is contaminated by dross and the commonplace. The glimpse of perfection that destroys the capacity for everything lesser. The knife at the throat of the world. Poison."

Thimblerig glanced at his hands. His knuckles were very hairy, and one split cuticle oozed slightly. "No, m'Lord. What are you making?"

"Purity." He lifted the flower from the workshop bench and held it up. The workshop dimmed. "A weapon."

Bloom

Like a green tower, the stalk grew into th esky.  Asphalt and paving stones lay scattered at its base, remnants of the tremendous speed of its growth.  It pulsed with verdant life 

At the top, nodding gently in the violent winds a half-mile up, a bud the size of a freight-liner gradually softened in the growing light.  The sun broke the horizon, and the petals opened in a glory of colors.  The people in the stopped cars and lopsided houses below gasped in wonder as the scent wafted down.

Then they heard the first ominous hum of a bee's wings...