Stick a white carnation in water mixed with some blue food coloring, and, slowly, the tips of its petals will take on a blue tinge. Eventually, the whole flower will start to take on a blue hue as the flower continues to drink that colorful water.
It’s transpiration or whatever (I did have to Google that), combined with what dye does by definition.
Today, thinking about flowers and dye and petal tips and tinges and hues, I began to wonder how different life would be if water had a color rather than being clear, like pure H2O being rose-colored rather than colorless. With water being the building block of life on Earth, as well as a component of many nonliving things, how would things change?
Very likely that rose-colored water would give all of these things a rose-colored tint. You and I would be slightly pinker. Those white carnations would start off as a tiny bit reddish.
Even the phrase rose-colored would take on a slightly different meaning. And because those roses would have this blush undertone in addition to any extra pigment they already have, it’s likely that “rose-colored” wouldn’t even be an apt name for the color of that water anymore.
The wildest part is that rose-colored water and a rose-colored world would be our normal. Most things would have a rosy hue from the day we were born to the day we die.
Some day, it would dawn on someone in this alternate reality that the world would be different if water were a different color. They might imagine life with pale green water. Maybe, if they were feeling extra existential, they might wonder how people would perceive everything if water were clear.
I wonder what it would be like to wonder that.
The Yellow Brick Ave 