The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
Green Thumb
by Kathryn Ptacek .
I have gardened most of my life, and I just noticed for the first time that many flowers and plants bear some resemblance to humans. Not the entire person. What I am thinking about is body parts.
Yeah. Body parts.
I might have suspected this for a long time, but never sat down to truly think about it. Except now that I have the broken foot and few visitors, I have more “inside” time, more hours to sit and stare at things or ponder this or that.
Like the purple orchid in the plain ceramic pot on the windowsill.
At least, I think it’s an orchid. I’ve had it for several years … a friend was downsizing her indoor plant collection and dropped the pot off on my porch one summer’s eve. I had never grown an orchid or anything remotely exotic, so I saw it as a botanical challenge. And for whatever reason, I kept forgetting to look the flower up on my phone. One of these days, right?
And so far I seemed to be doing the right thing. At least, until recently. A few days ago I noticed some of thin yellow streaks marred the dark green leaves. Too little water? Too much water? The light from the window was the same as always, so that wasn’t the problem, I decided.
Maybe I should take a photo of the plant and text it to a friend. She might know what was wrong. Or not. Not all gardeners know everything, I realized.
Now, though, I grabbed my crutches and hobbled closer and snapped a few shots of the plant from several angles. I thought with the first click of the cell’s camera, I detected a slight movement. Well, the window was open, although there was no breeze. It was like, I thought with a silly grin plastered on my face, the plant had stood a little taller … had preened.
I chuckled aloud. I needed to get out of the house soon, I thought. I have been in the house since the accident, and I must be getting a little stir crazy if I thought the plant moved.
Still.
I touched the lower petal … light purple with dark stripes. It had a velvety feel, like some roses I had grown over the years. I brought my fingers down along the full petal, almost a stroke, and the plant shivered. This time I wasn’t mistaken. I did it again, and the plant vibrated. Again and again. I thought the plant was almost shivering with pleasure, and my chuckle grew louder.
Maybe the plant was in the Venus fly trap family and reacted, in some ways, to touch.
I rested my finger on the petal and noticed the green stems above the flower … almost like a verdant collar. I had never really studied them. I really needed to pay more attention to my plants, I told myself sternly. I guess I always assumed that these would unfurl into more leaves. Except they never did.
As I stroked the flower again, and one of the stems–folded leaves? whatever!–swayed, and one at the other end seemed to bend down close to my finger.
It was then that I realized there were five of these green things … five like fingers, And I spread my hand and placed a finger against each of the stems, and within minutes they stems had curled around my fingers in a soft embrace.
I wasn’t surprised or afraid. I just stared, not sure I could really believe my eyes. And yet there were the twinning stems, wrapping my fingers until I could barely see my skin. I smiled and caressed each one with my other hand and felt a responding shiver.
My hand grew more green as the minutes passed, and the stems inched toward my wrist.
“No,” I said aloud with a shake of my head. “Just the hand.”
The stems’ movement stopped, and they went no further. And I watched as my hand became softer and more green, and the fingers were thick heavy stems.
And I realized now this was what my plant needed: Me.
It wasn’t hurting my hand. There was no wounds, no blood. It was just absorbing, for lack of a better word, my hand, and I didn’t mind at all.
I flexed my hand–our hand–and smiled.
It took most of the night for my hand to become the plant. And at some point as I sat back in my chair, I fell asleep. When I woke up in the morning, the change was complete. I touched my new hand, flexed my stems, and smiled.
It didn’t bother me, and I was glad, but I knew others–my friends, for instance–wouldn’t understand. Someone might want to cut my transformed hand off. “No,” I said aloud, clutching that hand to my chest. “No.”
Most days I sit in the sun and make sure my fingers receive enough light. I slip a glove on before someone comes to visit, and no one blinks. I always have a handy excuse, as it were.
My new fingers do all that my old ones did, and that pleases me. And I have noticed the little slits in the plant where the five stems once grew. Tiny buds are emerging … soon to be more stems. Wonderful. And maybe just maybe, it was time to pass the plant onto the next friend to see what happens.
I smiled.
.
Fiction © Copyright Kathryn Ptacek
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
Spreading the Writer's Word 