Yvette Solis, Short Story Board
December 5, 2023
There is a house. Or an apartment. Or a mansion. Or a cabin in the woods. It doesn’t matter the location you think of in this story, it doesn’t change what happens. It always ends the same.
In almost every place I’ve been to where people are living, there is always at least one plant.
This does not always mean that the people living in this place are plant people. Sometimes the plant is for a spot of color, merely a decoration to brighten up the place. Perhaps this is where it starts, right here.
In those kinds of situations, it never ends well for the plant.
They buy the plants with not a care in the world for its well being. Taking it home, maybe with it carelessly placed in the backseat of a car or loosely held in one arm with a phone to the ear in the other. Upon opening the door, there will probably be something else on their mind by then. And so the plant goes, off to whatever corner of their living space they decide to place it. The plant will be lucky if that spot happens to be in a window.
There it sits, silent and still, its bright green leaves a stark contrast to the lackluster environment that surrounds it. Waiting day by day for the warmth it used to have and always being disappointed in the end.
Do you think plants have dreams?
This one dreams of the sun.
Plants are said to be fairly easy to take care of. These people do not agree. Every plant they’ve ever had has died in their care. They complain to all their friends; it doesn’t matter if they water it, or put it in the sun, or ignore it for a month. Every single one has withered away, dust in the wind.
No one will ever ask the obvious question: is it that the plants are difficult?
Or is it that plants won’t grow when you could care less about them?
It’ll end up becoming a running joke to everyone they ever meet. It’s the plant killer! is teasingly thrown around. Everyone laughs except the plants. Of course plants can’t laugh, but even if they could, I don’t think they would.
It is easy to sit high and mighty above a throne of corpses if you can’t smell the rot.
There are a lot of things that plants can’t do that they probably wish they could. The one that sits in this person’s place wishes for a million things that they know they’ll never get. Sometimes the plant wishes for legs, wanting to run out of this space. Feeling the rain and the sun upon its leaves, green like they used to be. But this is a hopeless dream for the plant. It’s about as likely as its owner looking its way and really looking this time, not just looking through it.
As the plant slumps over, defeated at last, another brown and lifeless leaf falls from its form. The front door creaks open, the master of the house back again. They come close to the plant and a small ray of hope begins to filter through, like the sun through the clouds. But wishes and hope are for fools and the clouds come slamming back, as all that occurs are keys thrown thoughtlessly at its side.
If a plant could cry, this would be the moment this one broke down in tears. But maybe not, as at the same time, all it can feel is a numbing sensation and the feeling of being called home to rest.
Will its owner care? Probably not because they can always just go to the store again, like they have about a thousand times before. To them, there will always be another plant.
And so the plant sits, alone, as the sounds of the television turning on in the background fills the air. This place is plain and dull and life cannot thrive here, no matter how hard it tries.
Do you think in the end the plant is glad to go?