Houseplant Apocalypse
A plant-based near-death experience
Raymond heard distant voices. It seemed there were several people having conversations in a nearby room. It almost sounded like a bar except without any music. Maybe it was a crowded restaurant but he could not hear any silverware nor clinking of glasses. Was it some kind of meeting room? Although there were voices Raymond could not make out any words. The conversations seemed jovial and pleasant. There was occasional laughter.
Very slowly, Raymond opened his eyes.
He blinked and blinked. He raised his right arm to rub his eyes and that is when he noticed that there was something stuck in his arm. It was a tube. Rubbing his eyes and blinking several more times, Raymond realized that he was in a hospital.
What happened?
The voices were not a dream. He could still hear them now that he was awake. They seemed to be coming from the other side of the door to his hospital room.
Raymond tried to sit up in his bed but found that he did not have the strength to do so. He realized that he was heavily drugged and could barely even feel his body. Without moving his head he looked up at the ceiling of the hospital room.
And that is when the door to his hospital room opened. The din of distant voices grew momentarily louder until the door once again closed. Suddenly, there was a balding man in a white coat with a neatly trimmed beard and wire glasses standing over him.
“Good morning, Raymond.”
Raymond found himself incapable of responding.
“How are you feeling this morning? You sure went through quite an ordeal. Do you remember any of it? You know, you are very lucky to be alive.”
What the fuck?
“I’m Doctor Thompson. Can you hear me?”
Raymond managed to get out a weak, “Yeah.”
“Can you move your hands?”
Raymond moved his hands.
“That’s good. Can you wiggle your toes?”
Raymond wiggled his toes as Dr. Thompson turned his head to watch the toe wiggling.
“That’s excellent.” The doctor turned back to Raymond, “Now here is the controls for your bed. You can push this button to raise your upper body…”
Raymond immediately pushed the button. Once his head was sufficiently raised, he asked, “What happened?”
“Well, Raymond, I was hoping that you could answer that. Do you have any memory of what happened?”
“Not at all. All I remember was going to bed for the night and then waking up here. What’s wrong with me?”
“Well, you’ve got a serious concussion, four broken ribs, severe pricking on your legs, and you have very low hemoglobin levels. You also have contusions all over your body. Your neck is severely bruised. You were obviously choked and strangled nearly to the point of death. You don’t remember anything?”
“No. Severe pricking on my legs?”
“Yes, we pulled well over 200 cactus needles out of your legs.”
What the fuck?
Just then the distant clamor of voices increased in volume again as the door to Raymond’s hospital room opened. In walked Raymond’s adult son and daughter. Letting the door swing shut, they stood by the wall opposite of Raymond’s bed.
Dr. Thompson nodded at Raymond’s son and daughter then turned back towards Raymond, “It looks like you’ve got some family here so I’ll let you be. I’ll be back after a while to run some more tests. Meanwhile I’ll have the kitchen send up some breakfast for you. We’ve had you on an IV drip but you really need to eat so that you can build your strength back up.”
After Dr. Thompson left the room Jason and Karen walked up to Raymond’s bedside. Jason was in his early thirties and Karen was in her late twenties.
Smiling, it was Karen who spoke first, “Oh Dad, it is so good to see you’ve finally awakened.”
“How long have I been out?”
“Four days,” Karen’s smile faded away as she fought back tears, “We thought that we’d lost you. You were barely alive when we found you. Daddy, you scared the shit out of us.”
Raymond was confused, “What happened?”
Karen looked at her brother then back at her father, “Well, after you didn’t answer your phone for three days and after you failed to show up for work I started to worry. We contacted your landlord who let us into your apartment. And that’s when we found you….”
As Karen started to cry, Jason took over, “Dad, you know how you’re always joking that your apartment is like a jungle? Because of all the houseplants? And that someday they would all turn on you? Well, that is exactly what happened.”
“What?”
“Luckily I had my machete with me and we hacked our way into your bedroom where you were in bed unconscious. There were vines and ivy wrapped around your neck and around your body. They were slowly choking the life out of you. Those awful cacti you keep in the window had somehow gotten on the bed and were attacking your legs. That huge aloe vera plant on your headboard had managed to fall off the headboard and the clay pot hit you square in the head, knocking you out. And the big trees next to your bed had all fallen over on top of you. You were white as a ghost and barely had a pulse. It took us twenty minutes just to get all the plants off of you. When the ambulance arrived we had to hack a path through all the houseplants just to get the gurney to your bed.”
Karen spoke through her tears, “If we didn’t arrive when we did you probably wouldn’t have survived.”
“But…. but….”
Jason spoke, “Dad, a few houseplant in an apartment is one thing but your apartment…. well, it’s just ridiculous. You’ve got so many houseplants — or you did — that you can barely even move around in the apartment. You’ve always loved houseplants. Back when we were kids I thought we had too many of them but that back then was nothing compared to how crazy your houseplant obsession has become in recent years.”
Jason paused then continued, “You’re like the proverbial cat lady. You know, the old lady who lives alone and takes in stray cats until she’s got like 50 cats living with her and then one day they all eat her. You know, we actually thought about doing an intervention on you to get you to scale back on the plants but we didn’t go through with it. Now I wish we had. Maybe we could have prevented all this.”
“No, this can’t be. Uh…. uh…. my plants! Who’s watering them and taking care of them?”
Jason and Karen looked at each other then Jason spoke, “Yesterday afternoon my buddy Randy and I went into your apartment with machetes and we cleared out the jungle of plants. It took us all afternoon. We took six pickup loads of plants out to the dump.”
“The dump?”
Karen put her hand on Raymond’s shoulder, “Daddy, your houseplants tried to kill you! You almost died! It’s time for this houseplant madness to stop. No more houseplants! Okay?”
“But….”
“No buts! We’ve talked to a psychologist about this and the only solution is to keep you in a houseplant-free environment. You know you just can’t stop at one or two or three plants. You have to go completely plant-free. It’s the only way. Now, once you get out of the hospital you’re gonna come live with me and Billy and the kids. We’re fixing up the spare bedroom for you.”
“But your house doesn’t have a single houseplant in it!”
“EXACTLY! No more houseplants for you! You know, this houseplant obsession of yours really started getting out of hand after Mom passed away. I don’t know if you’re trying to fill some void with plants or what but it’s got to stop now.”
“But….”
Jason spoke firmly, “Dad, it obviously has not fully sunk in with you yet but what you have to realize is that your houseplants tried to kill you!”
Karen pleaded with her father, “Daddy please, you have to promise us right now; no more houseplants! Okay?”
Raymond tried to sit up but it was too painful. As he looked into the eyes of his two children a lone tear issued forth from his eye and rolled down his cheek, “Okay, I promise.”
Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved.