By Ella O’Neill
Lisa arrived home to her small flat at about six in the evening after a slow day at the office. She just felt off and couldn’t quite explain it. It was as if her footsteps dropped a little louder today, each step felt a little heavier than usual.
She turned on her evening lamps before she moved to wipe down her kitchen bench. Lisa found cleaning somewhat relaxing, and the bench had compiled a fair amount of clutter and dirt over the last few days. Not too far into the task, she decided she was hungry. She was planning to eat some leftover curry she had made earlier in the week, but when she looked through her kitchen, she realised there was no rice to eat it with. She sighed and placed her riceless meal into the microwave, watching as it slowly rotated on the glass dish. She wondered if the microwaves could reach her brain when she was close. She figured they probably wouldn’t be able to sell them if they did, but it didn’t ease the slight worry the thought evoked in her.
When she took out her steaming food, she yelped from the pain after holding it for about seven seconds. It was very overcooked.
Lisa dragged herself over to the couch with her dinner and looked out the window. The street was dark and quiet. The occasional flicker of a solitary pedestrian or possums were the only thing to catch her eye. The silence usually helped her wind down, but today it slowly seeped through the room like a leaky ceiling in a rainstorm. She started to wonder how much longer she could sit there before it drowned her.
Getting up, she went to turn on the radio; the white noise calmed her. She decided to go for a walk outside to check her mailbox and get some fresh air. Lisa walked through the silent courtyard. The smell of the bins was especially bad this week.
Perhaps something has died, she thought. She opened her rusty mail slot and found the box was empty.
Not even junk mail, she thought bitterly.
She stood there for a moment looking out onto the street, the soft glow of streetlights washing out the starless night sky. Lisa went to turn around when she noticed a small box of plants on the opposite side of the road. They were free, a sign said. She went over to look at them. There was a variety, and they were all quite small. Lisa didn’t know what sort of plants they were. They weren’t succulents. They had long stems with vibrant green leaves. She had kept plants in her home before, but they all seemed to die. Sometimes because of her neglect. Sometimes, for seemingly no reason at all.
I was younger then, and careless, she thought. I could look after this now.
She leaned down and picked up one of the plants. It was probably the biggest of the box and most of the leaves looked healthy. She lightly touched the leaves, considered where she might put it and then turned to go back inside.
Walking up the stairs to her apartment, Lisa decided exactly where she was going to put the plant. She had a little chair by her bed where the plant could soak up all the morning sun.
When she entered the bedroom, she placed her new plant down on the chair. The more Lisa looked at it, the more drawn to the plant she felt. As ridiculous as it seemed, she started to have a pervasive feeling like some sort of higher power had given her this life to save.
How silly, she thought. I must be delirious.
After setting the plant down exactly how she wanted it, she went to her kitchen, filled up a glass of water and poured it into the pot. The plant had looked a little droopy; she hoped it would pick up by the morning.
She stared at the plant. Very intensely. Something about this plant was special. Eventually, she prepared for bed, flicked off her light and drifted off to sleep.
Lisa awoke feeling as tired as when she went to bed, but she hauled herself up with a sigh and went to boil the kettle. Filling up the kettle with water, she remembered her plant from the night before. She finished making her tea and took it to the bedroom to see how her plant was doing.
When she got back to her bedroom, she was pleased to see that it had been rejuvenated, looking healthy and luscious as it bathed in the warmth of the morning sun. The stems were smooth and green; the droopy leaves from the night before were now tall, strong, and vibrant.
It occurred to Lisa that she had never really appreciated the beauty of plants before. She was utterly captivated.
As she gazed at the plant, she began to feel a connection.
This is silly, she thought.
But in her heart, she knew it was something special. She had brought this plant back to life, nurtured and cared for a dying life and given it another chance to flourish.
She went back to the kitchen to get some more water for the plant. As she poured the water over its leaves, she watched as it pooled and sank into the soil.
Lisa got herself ready for work, constantly thinking about her plant.
What sort of plant even was it? She thought. It looked like a pretty basic plant. Do plants need food? Could she be giving the plant too much water? She was starting to worry.
Once she finally got herself ready, she took one last look at the plant — her beautiful, healthy plant — and left for work.
Her day was slow and uneventful. When she finally arrived home, she dumped her stuff on the kitchen table and started to make herself a cup of tea. As she waited for the kettle to boil, she went to her room to hang up her coat and found her plant sitting as it was on the table next to her bed. Only now, it was wilted and miserable. She gasped as she ran over to inspect it. The ends of the leaves had even turned a bit dry and yellow. She felt her heart sink. She was mortified.
Maybe the tap water was the problem.
Maybe she poisoned it!
No, that couldn’t be it. If the water was safe for people, it had to be safe for plants.
Surely?
She ran back to the kitchen, poured a full glass of water from her water filter that she’d used maybe twice herself, and poured it all over the plant.
How could it be thirsty? I gave it water this morning!
She was stunned at how fast her beautiful and healthy plant had wilted into a sick, frail mess. A sense of worry fell over her while she further inspected the plant, so she decided she should finish making her tea.
Lisa finished making her cup, only to put it down and pace around her small apartment like a captive animal, thinking of what to do.
Did she need to buy food?
Do plants eat?
What about fertiliser?
What even is fertiliser?
Is that what plants eat?
Maybe it needs more water?
Was she unable to keep this plant alive for a single day?
Lisa grabbed her tea, it was supposed to be a relaxing blend of herbs, but she was disappointed to find it tasted like dirt. She sipped on it slowly and looked out the window. She watched the dark and silent street again, just as she had the night before. The heaviness from yesterday began to seep in again, suffocating her slowly as thoughts spun violently through her head. She didn’t know what to do.
Maybe the plant had too much sun during the day?
She dragged the chair to a new corner in her bedroom, completely away from the window and away from any sunlight.
Yes, that’s better.
Must be the sunlight.
After some time, Lisa decided she needed to eat and went to make some toast for her dinner. While her bread toasted, she went back into her bedroom to contemplate her plant, which unsurprisingly, looked just as miserable as before.
She jumped as she was suddenly brought back to reality by the smoke alarm piercing through the silence from the kitchen.
Why can’t I do anything right?
Lisa rushed to sort out the smoke alarm and scraped off the burnt pieces of her toast into the bin.
She slowly ate the charred remains of her toast in a daze and deliberated her sick plant. Coming to no solution and feeling tired and heavy, she decided to go to bed.
Lisa awoke the next morning feeling unsettled. She felt delirious from constantly being woken up by her anxious thoughts. She turned to see her plant and gasped. Her plant looked even worse than the night before. She stared at the dark corner where she had put her plant, remembering her desperate attempt to fix the miserable thing.
‘What was I thinking!’ She whined.
She was met with the familiar silence of her empty apartment.
Lisa jumped out of bed, grabbed the plant and moved it back to the original spot next to her bed.
‘I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry…’ Tears started to well in her eyes while she softly lifted the drooping leaves with her hands. The leaves were still turning yellow on the end, and one had even fallen off.
The silence of her apartment hung in the air with a threatening ambivalence. She softly cried as she cradled the broken leaves in her hands, before putting them on her windowsill.
To remind me of what I did.
You cannot hide from your failings.
Lisa got up and went to pour another glass of filtered water to put on her plant.
Perhaps the temperature is wrong.
Maybe I need it to be like outside?
She went to turn her heating system off and methodically opened every window. Lisa felt the sting of the cold morning air seep its way into her apartment. Shivering, she stared at her dying plant and decided that she wouldn’t be going to work today.
‘I won’t leave you,’ she said. ‘Not like this.’
After making the call to her work, telling them she had horrific food poisoning, she immediately rushed to her local nursery. Lisa spent over two hours picking out an organic fertiliser and compost and spent over three hundred dollars on a lamp that claimed to mimic sunlight. She marched out of the nursery with a sense of manic achievement and confidence.
When Lisa returned to her cold apartment, she put her bag on her kitchen table and rushed to the bedroom to see her plant. Somehow, the plant looked even more decrepit than it had three hours earlier.
‘Look at what I’ve got!’ She shrieked at the plant.
Lisa frantically tried to set up her new lamp, but she couldn’t untie the cord because her hands were numb from the cold, so she rushed to her desk and snatched her scissors to cut the tie. Once she set up the lamp, she watched the warm light glow over her sick and indifferent plant.
‘There you go. See? Look what mummy did for you.’ Next, she fed it the compost and the fertiliser. ‘You’ll be okay. Everything will be okay.’
The next few days were similar to the last. With each new day, Lisa tried new avenues of keeping the plant alive. She put her urine on it after reading it had “vital nutrients” that were otherwise going to waste. She played it classical, jazz and psychedelic rock music after reading that plants enjoyed those genres best. She even read the plant stories. At one point she was reading out verses from the Bible. All for her plant to deteriorate faster than it had to begin with.
Over the next two weeks, the plant looked almost as alive as the compost that was being fed to it. Lisa was deteriorating, too. She had gotten sick from her house being so cold. She hardly slept. Every minute she was awake, her head was charged with manic thoughts and ideas of everything she could be doing wrong for her plant.
It had been about three weeks when she finally woke up to find her plant shrivelling up. It wasn’t dead yet, but the signs of life were thinning, and only part of the stem was green.
She stood staring at her plant. The soft buzz of her sun-lamp was the only sound she could hear.
After some time, she began to pace around the apartment.
It’s not fair.
She skulked through back to the kitchen, the very idea of the plant seemed to ridicule her.
What else can I do?
She grabbed a cloth from the sink. It seemed to have some food on it, but she started to wipe down her bench anyway, knocking over a salt shaker in the process.
It was dead when you found it.
She started to wipe the bench harder, angrier.
‘What am I supposed to do?’ She shrieked. ‘I did it all! I did everything! What more is there to do!’
Lisa stormed out of her kitchen, fuelled by venomous rage.
When she entered her bedroom, she grabbed the miserable plant and ran outside. With a shrill cry, Lisa smashed the plant onto the concrete. Pieces of terracotta, dirt and compost littered the driveway. She stomped on the plant until it was as dead as the love she had for it.
When her fit of rage cooled off, she stood, staring at the broken mess she had created. It was as if she could feel a breeze softly sweep away the dark clouds of anger. She brushed herself off, looked out at the street, and turned back to her apartment.
She hadn’t finished cleaning the bench.