John was finding the volume of indoor plants quite irksome.

 

He tripped over a tomato plant then grasped an unapologetic cactus, attempting to break the fall. As he cried out, it felt like all the plants were laughing at him. Sniggering behind their leaves. He fell to his knees defeated. His head hung forward and he rested there momentarily like a pathetic house slave about to get its whipping. This is what it had come to with the plants, it was now their house, he just rented a room.

​

His girlfriend was to blame. She was obsessed with living things. Her joy at discovering their new flat together had a south-west facing sitting room. Ideal for growing peppers, she’d rejoiced. Before this it never occurred to John that rooms ‘faced’ a specific direction. He’d glanced up at the large bay windows then over at her. She had been smiling.

​

But now the bay windows were to blame. Home to a jungle of horticulture continually feeding through photosynthesis. How he loathed photosynthesis, almost as much as he loathed his new knowledge of the Latin terms for plants. The boiler man had commented on their fancy orchids and John needed to turn away, fighting the urge to correct him. It’s a phalaenopsis, you arse. So much rage. And brought on by such beautiful things. But the volume of them, everywhere, infesting the flat. That’s what he couldn’t stand.

​

He pulled himself up from the ground and tiptoed into the bedroom. He had to tiptoe as there wasn’t much floor space. Every room and corridor had a thick boarder of potted plants that reached up past his knees. Because of this the whole flat operated in a single-file fashion, constantly having to give way and wait for one another to pass before proceeding. All so that none of the leaves got knocked. And you couldn’t lean against a wall while balancing between pots. Oh no, the ivy was growing there. Snaking its way up the wallpaper, suffocating anything that didn’t get out its way fast enough. There used to be a light switch in the hallway. Well there still is, but it’s under the ivy and no one knows if it's still alive. There also used to be a downstairs loo, but now the ivy hangs from the ceiling in there, looking down at everyone. John used to feel it creeping over his shoulder, judging him every time he got his dick out.

​

Inside the bedroom he picked up his Playstation controller, shaking off a covering of soil. He gazed around the room for somewhere to sit. He daren’t move the courgette plants lounging across the bed. They like that spot because of the evening light, so he’d been told. Moving them wasn’t a quick task as courgette plants don’t just grow, they spread. They spread across and into the bed, making advances under the covers, coiling their branches between John’s legs. Like a horny drunk teenager falling over themselves and passing out, constantly having to push them off.

I don’t even like courgettes, she’d cry with laughter in the morning, spitting toothpaste into the sink. John would be lying in bed staring up at the ceiling, still tangled amongst their stems. Yeah, it’s f*cking hilarious, he’d think.

 

It hadn’t always been this way. The flat used to be bare, back when she was sad. How he longed for her to be so overcome with depression she could barely stand. The good old days when she’d perch at the end of the bed, staring. Screaming inside but mute to everyone else, eyes glazed over as John playfully ruffled her hair.  That’s what made him happiest. The unresponsiveness.  Knowing she was set in for the day and there was nothing he could do to make it worse.  She was drowning at the bottom of that very deep well and by default anything he did would act as a safety line, pulling her back up. And he didn’t have to do much. It was never other people that helped her ‘shake out of it’, it was that sudden switch in the head, when it clicked back and she couldn’t remember why it had been so bad.

​

She had bounced back and stayed bounced back for some months. Long enough to start planting seeds and not stop until the house was a greenhouse and haven for bees. Ramming their bodies against the windows, dying in the hallway. When she was like this, she didn’t need John. Content in her own mind, never curious what was happening in his. She only longed for him when something bad happened to the plants. When the blueberry bushes mysteriously failed to fertilise, she held John from behind and silently wept into his back. He felt the dampness seep through his t-shirt and smiled.  

 

When John was horny, he’d nudge a pot off a windowsill or tear at the tomato leaves. Distraught, she’d throw herself onto the courgette covered bed where he was waiting to comfort her. At times like this he saw her as a plant herself; a collapsing tulip unable to keep hold of its petals, falling all over the place for John to pick up. But he didn't mind. Like a tulip, he could easily snap her stem. Make her broken again. Remind her she can’t even care for a pot of dirt.

 

This morning she’d woken up feeling sensitive, treading water, aware she was close to sinking. John had noticed. He'd dipped his little finger into a plant pot, gently shook her shoulder and presented her with the dry soil. Needs watering. Should have been watered yesterday, he'd let her think. She'd stared down at her mistake and rolled onto her side and stayed there.  

 

Now, standing over the bed looking down at her, John brushed her wet cheek with the back of his hand. She held it like a comfort blanket, convinced he was the only thing that could make her happy.

​

The end