Previous Chapter 2
The sun was going down as I parked my car and climbed the stairs to my apartment. It wasn’t much: a small, one-bedroom place, and the neighbors could get a little loud on weekends and sports nights, but it was mine. I hung my keys and purse on the hat rack by the entrance, shut the door, and dropped onto the couch. On the rare occasions that people visited, they always remarked on how empty the main room looked. Next to the door was a small shoe rack and a couch, a small tv on an end table stood on the wall opposite, the computer desk was tucked into the corner by the kitchen, and a catch-all project table with storage underneath it occupied the wall on the far side of the front door. That left the majority of the floor space empty, meaning I had plenty of room for me to pull out a project, work on it, and then put it away, leaving the place clean and open once again.
I pulled my
shoes off and put them on the shoe rack, then sat back on the couch and let
myself relax. As much as I had enjoyed talking with Bast, being around
high-energy people is always draining, and I needed some quiet time.
Thankfully, the neighbors seemed to agree; I couldn’t hear any parties or
sports games going on, so it would probably be a decently quiet night.
After a few
minutes, I got up and walked over to the sole plant in my apartment, sitting on
the window ledge by the tv. It was a philodendron I’d named Frank, taken as a
clipping from the first plant I ever spoke to when I was a kid. It’s amazingly
easy to judge when to repot and when to cut a plant back when it can tell you exactly
what and when it needs, so the vines growing out of the pot covered every inch
of the window sill beside the tv.
“Hey Frank.
How’s it going?” I said. We had ‘spoken’ with each other for so many years that
we had gotten used to speaking-style thought patterns; I didn’t have to focus
as much to chat with him unless there were a lot of distractions nearby. This
time, though, all I got was silence. I frowned. We hadn’t had a disagreement lately
– yes, thank you, you can have a disagreement with a plant – so I wasn’t sure
why I didn’t get a response. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and dropped
into the deeper communication mode I used with unfamiliar plants.
“Frank? Everything ok?” I queried. I caught snatches of a distant conversation, then, almost as if he were shouting from far away, came, “Yes, hang on, I’ll be with you in a moment!” and the conversation continued.
