Queen of the Andes
ShortStory 6,744 words Recommended by 2 award/anthology sources
"Every morning before work, I measure the Queen of the Andes. I’ve nicknamed her Nova because her trunk is a ball of spikes that reminds me of a supernova in slow motion, an explosion of leaves pointing in two hundred and three directions from the core of the bromeliad (the largest of her species—and the last)."
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
Quasar links out; the story lives on Lightspeed, where the author gets the click.