After a few days in the house without E, things began to sprout out of the compost. They

were an alchemic, ecological accident. You refused to partake in this act of apparent littering,

so whatever was tossed into the mulchy bed outside your window was only ever done so by

E: eggplant heads; corn cobs gnawed to bone; moulded bread crusts, cherry pits sucked clean.

There were a few times in the beginning where you saw them as small jewels, or the promise

of a new season. Watching the garden bed grow a fur of vagrant sprouts, you tried to list all

the miracles you knew: angels, aliens, children, sleep, touch, taste.

 

Block everything out, I can still hear her, no you can’t, stop saying lost, I can draw, fool of the

sky, fool of heaven, fool me once, fool me four times, lucky you, lucky me, lucky us, I need

everything to be still why are there things growing in my garden.

 

A voice on the radio reminds you that there will be a higher average rainfall than June last

year. This is the perfect opportunity for any green thumbs out there that have been thinking to

grow cucumbers, onions, radishes, or corn. You breathe in, sparking a yawn, and spit a briny

mouthful of liquid into the kitchen sink.

 

Good morning – try again. A single stem seems to have triumphed, swollen and mossy at the

root, its slender stalk giving way to a ripe, green bauble. You hear the shriek of a mother from

the other side of your shared fence: You have always been a rude boy! God punishes

troublemakers like you! She continued to shrill in a language you did not understand. What

do you know of punishment? The sprout waves from the other side of the glass, mocking

your cage. You picture the strength it would take to thrust open the window and stick your

head out like a dog – and decide that you have never lifted an ambitious hand in your entire

life.

 

You wore something of each other’s clothing on the first night you met. Back then it was still

spring. You swapped shoes after discovering you shared the same size. You fit your cap onto

her head after she laughed and called you an angel, oh, such an angel. You slung on her

leather jacket, still warm from her body, pretending that you might be her. Your shared

friends said things like You’re getting along well, then?, followed by an Ah, I knew you guys

would get along, or an ambiguous Opposites attract. You wedged your fingers into her

dimples and branded yourself a girl-Giacomo, praying to your God that you were the first to

chart these unknown territories. You asked her how a dimple was born, and she offered to

scoop hers off her cheeks and put them on yours.

​

Now, consider the facts:

Your heart has hardened into a tableau upon which only your missing her is carved.

You missed her, all of her, and all of her was missing.

In her place, an unjust and inadequate consolation prize, was the impossibility of something sprouting from nothing.

​

Roses are related to apples, raspberries, cherries, peaches, plums, nectarines, pears and

almonds – did you know? Mama’s voice through the veins of your speaker as you scroll

through your camera roll, bloated with images of the alien garden. Today, you find it has

flushed entirely rouge, bearing two slim arms, extended comically wide like a child’s sketch

of a flower. Lozenge clouds are bobbing in a pink, dying sky. Something unrecognisable is

crackling in your heart – a milky eggshell, held together only by the film of its inner skin.

Beba, are you listening to me? Have you thought about growing out your hair?

​

A scarf that E only had time to wear once is looped around the banister of the stairs,

preserved, perfect noose. You don’t dare to touch it, for fear it dissolve like red sand in your

dirty hand. The opposite of a Midas Touch. Your sensory organs are expecting her to round

the sharp turn from kitchen into bedroom – your frontal lobe knows that she locked the door

when she left.

 

You spend eight minutes peeling the skin off a potato, pondering the secret of its longevity.

You turn it thrice in your hand like an oversized pebble, enjoying its smooth starchiness. The

stalk had grown threefold in 12 hours, tickling the mosquito screen that separated you and it.

 

On the fifth day of the growing, you slammed the bedroom door – another alchemic accident

– and a picture frame went flying off the wall. You’re noticing more spiders in the kitchen

than usual. This house is more theirs than it is yours.

 

You’re drunk-cutting your hair on the edge of the bed you shared with someone six days ago.

There is no one left to impress anymore.

Suddenly – write this down Ella, write this down:

anything can be killed if ripped from the roots

 

The next morning, you read through E’s emails. It was still logged in on your laptop. The

archive is professional and mostly spam, aside from one: Free Morse Code Training for

Beginners.

It was written when Pandora opened that box.

Don’t feel remorse – just learn Morse!

E had responded to the email, a prompt reply with her personal and bank details, securing the

luring Free 7-Day Trial (then $149.99 per quarter). Learn like the sailors did!

By the time you took your eyes off the screen, the sky was the colour of a bruise.

​

An inky printout of the International Morse Code Alphabet is pinned to your fridge under a

pair of heavy magnets. You’re learning your dits and dahs with your dinner; spreading out a

map of slimy orecchiette across a placemat. Four short – pause – then two more. That reads

HI. The TV glow from the neighbour’s window backlit the compost-beast, so that it was a wriggling shadow. You wonder if she was still angry with her son. A storm had slunk into the

sky, sending the flora flailing, but you were trying to recall the exact shape and length of two

dimples. You bite the inside of your cheek and hope one grows there. Then, almost

imperceptible –

​

dot dot dot dot

dot dot

​

The beast had a bulbous leaf-hand against the window. You put a cold finger against the glass

and rapped back in slow-motion.

​

dot dash

dot dash dot dot

dot dot

dot dot dot dash

dot

dot dot dash dash dot dot

(ALIVE?)

​

dash dot dash dash

dot

dot dot dot

(YES)

​

xylem phloem

identify this weed app

morse code chart simple

can plants learn a language

how long does it take for a death to be legally registered

do plants have antibodies

muscles

brains

consciousness