Final Project: Popeye the Papaya

Popeye the sailor man! Here, he isn’t really a sailor man, but more of a papaya?

How I came to think of this story was when I was amazingly helping my mom cook dinner at home. I’ve never stepped foot into the kitchen, and I was tasked to do the most important thing, which was to cook rice. I spotted some grains of uncooked rice behind our rice container, and started thinking, wow it must be sad for that grain of rice.. It took so much energy and resources for it’s parent plant to painstakingly (at least what I think happens) grow out this one grain of rice, and through the process of harvesting, milling and packaging, there is always that possibility of it getting wasted. I just had to wonder, “How would I feel if I was that grain of rice? I’ve gone through so much just to be forgotten.”

Well, now that I think about it, it was a really uneducated thought hahaha. I could’ve been thinking about food waste, but there I was, afraid of hurting the feelings of a non-living grain of rice.

So that led to this, showing how happy a papaya seed would be if it were to be successful. Enjoy

This papaya starts stranded in the middle of the ocean. How, when or why it got there was a mystery. How this papaya can float in water, is also a mystery.

In this papaya, there lie an weary papaya seed. Stuck floating in this seemingly endless ocean, and probably forgotten by the rest of the world, what would her future hold?

Guess that papaya lucked out. It manages to reach land away from a dangerous erupting volcano.

Shocked by reaching land, the seed became happy. She saw some hope. Her growth into a papaya seed was not going to be wasted.

Tok tok tok.

The bird pecks at the papaya and ingests the seed. Would this be the end of her life? Digested or not, the seed was already happy to be of good use by giving the bird some nutrition.

Instead, the bird poops the seed out. Life is always full of surprises, isn’t it?

The seed finds herself in the middle of a forest. With surrounding water and nutrients, the seed spreads it’s roots deep into the ground. This is one ambitious seed. She’s going to grow into a big strong tree and she knows it.

 

Finally, the adult tree grows up. Providing her surroundings with resources, this tree is contended, and even works to produce papaya seeds herself.