PLANT LOVER: Part 4

So Good Together

A sometimes erotic series about the relationships between plants and their human counterparts

-by Lina Piskernik

The message showed up on his computer on the first day of the lockdown. It came in the form of an untitled Word document.

Nathan.

I’m glad you’ve returned.

He just wiped the sleep from his eyes and sat in his pyjamas as he stared at the too-bright-for-November-mornings screen. He didn’t have his coffee yet and quite literally just rolled out of bed. The work desk and office chair were the only actual pieces of furniture in the bedroom since he still slept on a mattress on the floor even though he was well into his 30s. 

He was sure that he did not open a Word document before going to sleep last night and he would have remembered writing a message to himself. 

Prior to going to sleep, he only drank a beer while he watched the newest season of Tiger King on his flatscreen TV, brushed his teeth and then went to bed; his dreams filled with mullet-haired Oklahoma rednecks trying to bomb his apartment from helicopters. 

Besides the strange dreams, there really was no indication for Nathan to send himself bizarre one sentence messages and he did not have a roommate, so this couldn’t be a prank. Additionally, if he really was sleep-walking last night, wouldn’t he have sent himself messages about Carol Baskins feeding her husband to the tigers? It didn’t make sense.

He rubbed his bloodshot eyes again and signed into his company’s Teams app to ensure that his boss thought he was already working. Then Nathan walked to the kitchen to make himself breakfast: 2 sunny-side up fried eggs with a piece of toast topped with avocado. While the eggs were frying, he washed out his stovetop espresso maker from the grounds of yesterday. He poured fresh water into the lowest metal segment and then ground coffee beans into the holder separating the fresh water from the top section that would eventually catch the fresh espresso shots. As he toasted the bread and watched the whites of the eggs bubble in the hot butter, Nathan thought he heard some clacking from his bedroom, but he assumed that it was only the falling sleet hitting the windowsills.

Nathan took his breakfast plate and small steaming espresso mug back to his work desk and plopped down on the chair, letting out a world-weary sigh. 

Another work-from-home day during lockdown. It feels like Groundhog Day, Nathan thought, as he watched messages from colleagues pop up in the lively group chat. He crunched into his toast, ignoring the crumbs hitting his keyboard and becoming trapped in the crevices between the keys.

Once he finished his breakfast and espresso, he dove fully into his work; typing on his keyboard, clicking with his mouse, and accepting intrusive phone calls from his manager that he couldn’t fend off. 

Only around lunchtime did he remember the unnamed Word document with the mysterious message. Surely one of his colleagues figured out a way to hack his computer. He worked in IT after all, and it was usual in the offices to play pranks on each other to distract from their bleak customer-oriented jobs. 

Nathan pulled up the Word document to read over the message one more time. Maybe his mischievous colleague left a clue. Instead, he found another message. The previous one was erased.

© Andrea Z. Scharf

You left me once. 

Please don’t leave me again. 

We can’t go back to the way it was before.

He was perplexed. Generally, his colleagues’ pranks consisted of sending surprise dick pics or other types of body horror they found on the internet. Nobody from his team would send him something like this. It was too subtle and smart, a bit too creepy for their standards.

He leaned back in bewilderment, looking around his sparsely decorated room as if he was able to find the secretive writer sitting in a corner somewhere. Nathan’s last girlfriend had split up with him before the pandemic, well over 2 years ago, and never contacted him again. She ensured to show her distaste for him by tearing one of his favourite books “Atlas Shrugged” in two before she moved out of their shared apartment. Surely, she would not put in the effort to send him disconcerting messages out of the blue. 

He looked back at his desk. It was a cheap work desk that his mother bought him from IKEA when he first moved to the city to study, over 10 years ago. The white paint started chipping in one corner and the surface was not cleaned in years. It was covered in old pamphlets that restaurants put in his mailbox without solicitation and receipts from when he put in a call to them at 3 am after a night out. 

Nathan’s vision swept over the desk once more. On top of two books sat his ex-girlfriend’s English ivy plant that she left behind. During the past three lockdowns he finally figured out how to take care of her which led her to thrive. Somewhere he read that plants grow better if you talked to them. There was something about the vibrations of one’s voice and the CO2 making the leaves stronger and more stable. He placed her in different windows to see if the sun was better for her in the kitchen or in the bedroom. Ultimately, he positioned her on his work desk, a sunny spot facing the street.

Nathan talked to her every day. Once he figured out what kind of plant she was, he simply called her “Ivy.” She was his colleague and friend during a time when he was not chosen for anyone’s COVID bubble. He had acquaintances but he wasn’t close enough to anyone to risk an infection for.

He realized, as he stared at her, that his loneliness was buffered by his friendship with this houseplant. Ivy had grown in every direction once he started to genuinely take care of her instead of simply watering her when it came to mind. And he certainly spent plenty of time with her, just talking.

He looked back at his computer screen, still deep in his thoughts. His right hand was on the mouse and his left hand was resting on the table to the left of his keyboard. He felt guilty and sad, suddenly realizing that he left Ivy alone once the summer came and the vaccinations began. He had a few months of freedom where he would ride his bike to the Donauinsel and dance at raves until the morning light. He was able to talk to people face-to-face again without worrying. He even made new friends and took a few of them home with him for a night.

Suddenly he felt something touch his left hand resting on the table, pulling him out of his thoughtfulness. There was an English ivy leaf, a deep dark green, gently caressing his hand. It would have surprised him if it was the first time that he had felt Ivy’s leaves on him, but it wasn’t. During those especially lonely lockdown days, Nathan would stroke her leaves and vines, sometimes even rubbing his cheek against an especially luscious, waxen leaf of hers. He had imagined this very moment of her returning his caresses quite often during those times. 

Then the vine moved towards the keyboard. Slowly, Ivy began to type:

We were so good together.

Nathan sighed. It was true. His relationship with Ivy was probably the best he’d had in years. She always listened to him and she certainly didn’t destroy his books when she was angry. Ivy’s leaf was back on his left hand, gently moving up and down his middle finger. 

Yes, they enjoyed their time together during those lockdowns. Why did he think that he had to go out in search of friends and love when he had it all right here in front of him?

He let out at another deep sigh as he felt Ivy’s familiar caresses on his hand. A plant’s touch was incomparable to a human’s, so much frailer but somehow less hungry. In his previous relationship it always felt like his girlfriend wanted something more from him, something that he was not able to provide to her. Ivy never asked for much besides water and a bit of attention.

He stood up and lifted Ivy from her spot at the window. Nathan carried her to his mattress and placed her on the parquet floor next to it. Overcome with a feeling of tenderness, he laid down next to her on the mattress and placed his hand below her leaves which were overflowing from the pot. He could feel Ivy ‘s tendrils moving around his fingers and surrounding his wrist. Goosebumps began to form on his arm, moving down and across his body. He wanted to be closer to her and moved her pot into his bed with his free, unentwined hand. Gently, gently she caressed his chest above his clothing, lulling him into a deep relaxation. It felt so right to feel her against him, her tickling leaves and her cool ceramic pot slowly warming against his skin. 

He turned to his side so that he could embrace her pot. Ivy’s leaf-covered vines had long released his fingers and were now slithering across his body, the leaves rubbing against his skin and clothes. Her goal was to completely envelope him in her love with her leaves and vines. 

Finally they were together as she had hoped, and with this lockdown only beginning, Ivy knew that she had time to make him all hers before the outside-world distractions would come for him once again.